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The Shadow of Ashlydyat

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Title: The Shadow of Ashlydyat

Author: Mrs. Henry Wood


        
Release date: February 25, 2013 [eBook #42200]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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Credits: E-text prepared by Colin Bell, Delphine Lettau, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHADOW OF ASHLYDYAT ***
THE SHADOW OF ASHLYDYAT

by

MRS. HENRY WOOD

Author of
"East Lynne," "The Channings," "Johnny Ludlow," etc.

One Hundred and Eightieth Thousand







Macmillan and Co., Limited
St. Martin's Street, London
1907

All rights reserved

London:
Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Limited,
Duke Street, Stamford Street, S.E., and Great Windmill Street, W.




CONTENTS.


PART THE FIRST.

  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
      I.  THE MEET OF THE HOUNDS                                       1
     II.  LADY GODOLPHIN'S FOLLY                                       9
    III.  THE DARK PLAIN IN THE MOONLIGHT                             17
     IV.  ALL SOULS' RECTORY                                          24
      V.  THOMAS GODOLPHIN'S LOVE                                     33
     VI.  CHARLOTTE PAIN                                              41
    VII.  BROOMHEAD                                                   45
   VIII.  A SNAKE IN THE GRASS                                        52
     IX.  MR. SANDY'S "TRADE"                                         60
      X.  THE SHADOW                                                  66
     XI.  A TELEGRAPHIC DESPATCH                                      73
    XII.  DEAD                                                        80
   XIII.  UNAVAILING REGRETS                                          85
    XIV.  GONE ON BEFORE                                              91
     XV.  A MIDNIGHT WALK                                             99
    XVI.  THE LAST JOURNEY                                           105
   XVII.  A ROW ON THE WATER                                         113
  XVIII.  STRAW IN THE STREETS                                       119
    XIX.  ONE STICK DISCARDED                                        125
     XX.  A REVELATION TO ALL SOULS' RECTOR                          138
    XXI.  CHARLOTTE'S BARGAIN                                        146
   XXII.  DANGEROUS AMUSEMENT                                        156


PART THE SECOND.

  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
      I.  SIXTY POUNDS TO OLD JEKYL                                  166
     II.  WHY DID IT ANGER HIM?                                      173
    III.  CECIL'S ROMANCE                                            179
     IV.  CHARLOTTE PAIN'S "TURN-OUT"                                185
      V.  A REVELATION                                               191
     VI.  MR. VERRALL'S CHAMBERS                                     202
    VII.  BEYOND RECALL                                              208
   VIII.  THE TRADITION OF THE DARK PLAIN                            216
     IX.  THE DEAD ALIVE AGAIN                                       225
      X.  NINE THOUSAND AND FORTY-FIVE POUNDS                        236
     XI.  THOSE BONDS AGAIN!                                         239
    XII.  "I SEE IT: BUT I CANNOT EXPLAIN IT"                        244
   XIII.  A RED-LETTER DAY FOR MRS. BOND                             258
    XIV.  ISAAC HASTINGS TURNS TO THINKING                           267
     XV.  A NIGHTMARE FOR THE RECTOR OF ALL SOULS'                   272
    XVI.  MR. LAYTON "LOOKED UP"                                     278
   XVII.  GONE!                                                      290
  XVIII.  MURMURS; AND CURIOUS DOUBTS                                294
    XIX.  BOBBING JOAN                                               302
     XX.  MRS. BOND'S VISIT                                          310
    XXI.  A DREAD FEAR                                               315
   XXII.  BEARING THE BRUNT                                          329
  XXIII.  "AS FINE AS A QUEEN!"                                      343
   XXIV.  A VISIT TO LORD AVERIL                                     356
    XXV.  IN THE STREETS OF PRIOR'S ASH                              367
   XXVI.  MY LADY WASHES HER HANDS                                   377
  XXVII.  A BROKEN IDOL                                              382


PART THE THIRD.

  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
      I.  A MORNING CALL                                             394
     II.  NEARER AND NEARER                                          405
    III.  FOR THE LAST TIME                                          409
     IV.  GATHERED TO HIS FATHERS                                    423
      V.  COMMOTION AT ASHLYDYAT                                     434
     VI.  A CROWD OF MEMORIES                                        446
    VII.  AT REST                                                    458
   VIII.  A SAD PARTING                                              466
     IX.  A SAFE VOYAGE TO HIM!                                      470


       *       *       *       *       *


   "Over him rushed, like a wind that is keen and cold and relentless,
    Thoughts of what might have been, and the weight and woe of his
          errand,
    All the dreams that had faded, and all the hopes that had vanished,
    All his life henceforth a dreary and tenantless mansion,
    Haunted by vain regrets, and pallid, sorrowful faces."
                                                             LONGFELLOW.


       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER I.

THE MEET OF THE HOUNDS.


It was a bright day in autumn: the scene one of those fair ones rarely
witnessed except in England. The sun, warm and glowing, almost as that
of a summer's day, shone on the stubble of the cornfields, whence the
golden grain had recently been gathered; gilded the tops of the
trees--so soon to pass into the "sere and yellow leaf;" illumined the
blue hills in the distance, and brought out the nearer features of the
landscape in all their light and shade. A fine landscape, comprising
hill and dale, water and green pastures, woods and open plains. Amidst
them rose the signs of busy life; mansions, cottages, hamlets, railways,
and churches, whose steeples ascended high, pointing the way to a better
Land.

The town of Prior's Ash, lying in a valley, was alive that gay morning
with excitement. It was the day appointed for the first meet of the
hounds; the P. A. hounds, of some importance in the county; and people
from far and near were flocking to see them throw off. Old and young,
gentle and simple, lords of the soil and tradesmen, all were wending
their way to the meet. The master, Colonel Max, was wont on this, the
first morning of the season, to assemble at his house for breakfast as
many as his large dining-room could by any species of crowding contain;
and it was a fine sight, drawing forth its numerous spectators to watch
them come out in procession, to the meet. As many carriages-and-four,
with their fair occupants, would come to that first meet, as you could
have seen in the old days on a country race-course. This show was an
old-fashioned local custom; Colonel Max was pleased to keep it up, and
he lacked not supporters. The opening this year was unusually early.

The gay crowd was arriving, some from the breakfast, some from their
homes. The rendezvous was a wide, open common, with no space wanting.
The restrained hounds snarled away at a short distance, and their
attendants, attired for the hunt, clacked their whips among them.

Riding a noble horse, and advancing from the opposite direction to that
of Colonel Max and his guests, came a tall, stately man, getting in
years now. His features were regular as though they had been chiselled
from marble: his fine blue eyes could sparkle yet; and his snow-white
hair, wavy as of yore, was worn rather long behind, giving him somewhat
the appearance of a patriarch. But the healthy bloom, once
characteristic of his face, had left it now: the paleness of ill-health
sat there, and he bent his body, as if too weak to bear up on his horse.
His approach was discerned; and many started forward, as with one
impulse, to greet him. None stood higher in the estimation of his
fellow-men than did Sir George Godolphin; no other name was more
respected in the county.

"This is good indeed, Sir George! To see you out again!"

"I thought I might venture," said Sir George, essaying to meet a dozen
hands at once. "It has been a long confinement; a tedious illness. Six
months, and never out of the house; and, for the last fortnight, out
only in a garden-chair. My lady wanted to box me up in the carriage this
morning; if I must come, she said. But I would not have it: had I been
unable to sit my horse, I would have remained at home."

"You feel weak still?" remarked one, after most of the greeters had had
their say, and were moving away.

"Ay. Strength, for me, has finally departed, I fear."

"You must not think that, Sir George. Now that you have so far recovered
as to go out, you will improve daily."

"And get well all one way, Godolphin," joined in the hearty voice of
Colonel Max. "Never lose heart, man."

Sir George turned his eyes upon Colonel Max with a cheerful glance. "Who
told you I was losing heart?"

"Yourself. When a man begins to talk of his strength having finally
departed, what's that, but a proof of his losing heart? Low spirits
never cured any one yet: but they have killed thousands."

"I shall be sixty-six years old to-morrow, colonel: and if, at that age,
I can 'lose heart' at the prospect of the great change, my life has
served me to little purpose. The young may faint at the near approach of
death; the old should not."

"Sixty-six, old!" ejaculated Colonel Max. "I have never kept count of my
own age, but I know I am that if I am a day; and I am young yet. I may
live these thirty years to come: and shall try for it, too."

"I hope you will, colonel," was the warm answer of Sir George Godolphin.
"Prior's Ash could ill spare you."

"I don't know about that," laughed the colonel. "But I do know that I
could ill spare life. I wish you could take the run with us this
morning!"

"I wish I could. But that you might accuse me of--what was it?--losing
heart, I would say that my last run with the hounds has been taken. It
has cost me an effort to come so far as this, walking my horse at a
snail's pace. Do you see Lady Godolphin? She ought to be here."

Colonel Max, who was a short man, raised himself in his stirrups, and
gazed from point to point of the gradually increasing crowd. "In her
carriage, I suppose?"

"In her carriage, of course," answered Sir George. "She is no amazon."
But he did not avow his reason for inquiring after his wife's
carriage--that he felt a giddiness stealing over him, and thought he
might be glad of its support. Neither did he explain that he was unable
to look round for it himself just then, under fear of falling from his
horse.

"I don't think she has come yet," said Colonel Max. "I do not see the
livery. As to the ladies, they all look so like one another now, with
their furbelows and feathers, that I'll be shot if I should know my own
wife--if I had one--at a dozen paces' distance. Here is some one else,
however."

Riding up quietly, and reining in at the side of Sir George, was a
gentleman of middle height, with dark hair, dark grey eyes, and a quiet,
pale countenance. In age he may have wanted some three or four years of
forty, and a casual observer might have pronounced him "insignificant,"
and never have cast on him a second glance. But there was a certain
attraction in his face which won its way to hearts; and his voice
sounded wonderfully sweet and kind as he grasped the hand of Sir George.

"My dear father! I am so glad to see you here!"

"And surprised too, I conclude, Thomas," returned Sir George, smiling on
his son. "Come closer to me, will you, and let me rest my arm upon your
shoulder for a minute. I feel somewhat giddy."

"Should you have ventured out on horseback?" inquired Thomas Godolphin,
as he hastened to place himself in proximity with his father.

"The air will do me good; and the exertion also. It is nothing to feel a
little weak after a confinement such as mine has been. You don't follow
the hounds to-day, I see, Thomas," continued Sir George, noting his
son's plain costume.

A smile crossed Thomas Godolphin's lips. "No, sir. I rarely do follow
them. I leave amusement to George."

"Is he here, that graceless George?" demanded the knight, searching into
the crowd with fond and admiring eyes. But the admiring eyes did not see
the object they thought to rest on.

"He is sure to be here, sir. I have not seen him."

"And your sisters? Are they here?"

"No. They did not care to come."

"Speak for Janet and Cecil, if you please, Thomas," interrupted a young
lady's voice at this juncture. The knight looked down; his son looked
down also: there stood the second daughter of the family, Bessy
Godolphin. She was a dark, quick, active little woman of thirty, with an
ever-ready tongue, and deep grey eyes.

"Bessy!" uttered Sir George, in astonishment. "Have you come here on
foot?"

"Yes, papa. Thomas asked us whether we wished to attend the meet; and
Janet--who must always be master and mistress, you know--answered that
we did not. Cecil dutifully agreed with her. I did care to attend it; so
I came alone."

"But, Bessy, why did you not say so?" remonstrated Mr. Godolphin. "You
should have ordered the carriage; you should not have come on foot. What
will people think?"

"Think!" she echoed, holding up her pleasant face to her brother, in its
saucy independence. "They can think anything they please; I am Bessy
Godolphin. I wonder how many scores have come on foot?"

"None, Bessy, of your degree, who have carriages to sit in or horses to
ride," said Sir George.

"Papa, I like to use my legs better than to have them cramped under a
habit or in a carriage; and you know I never could bend to form and
fashion," she said, laughing. "Dear papa, I am delighted to see you! I
was so thankful when I heard you were here! Janet will be ready to eat
her own head now, for not coming."

"Who told you I was here, Bessy?"

"Old Jekyl. He was leaning on his palings as I came by, and called out
the information to me almost before I could hear him. 'The master's gone
to it, Miss Bessy! he is out once again! But he had not on his scarlet,'
the old fellow added; and his face lost its gladness. Papa, the whole
world is delighted that you should have recovered, and be once more
amongst them."

"Not quite recovered yet, Bessy. Getting better, though; getting better.
Thank you, Thomas; the faintness has passed."

"Is not Lady Godolphin here, papa?"

"She must be here by this time. I wish I could see her carriage: you
must get into it."

"I did not come for that, papa," returned Bessy, with a touch of her
warm temper.

"My dear, I _wish_ you to join her. I do not like to see you here on
foot."

"I shall set the fashion, papa," laughed Bessy, again. "At the great
meet next year, you will see half the pretenders of the county toiling
here on foot. I say I am Bessy Godolphin."

The knight ranged his eyes over the motley group, but he could not
discern his wife. Sturdy, bluff old fox-hunters were there in plenty,
and well-got-up young gentlemen, all on horseback, their white cords and
scarlet coats gleaming in the sun. Ladies were chiefly in carriages; a
few were mounted, who would ride quietly home again when the hounds had
thrown off; a very few--they might be counted by units--would follow the
field. Prior's Ash and its neighbourhood was supplied in a very limited
degree with what they were pleased to call masculine women: for the term
"fast" had not then come in. Many a pretty woman, many a pretty girl was
present, and the sportsmen lingered, and were well pleased to linger, in
the sunshine of their charms, ere the business, for which they had come
out, began, and they should throw themselves, heart and energy, into it.

On the outskirts of the crowd, sitting her horse well, was a handsome
girl of right regal features and flashing black eyes. Above the ordinary
height of woman, she was finely formed, her waist slender, her shoulders
beautifully modelled. She wore a peculiar dress, and, from that cause
alone, many eyes were on her. A well-fitting habit of bright
grass-green, the corsage ornamented with buttons of silver-gilt; similar
buttons were also at the wrists, but they were partially hidden by her
white gauntlets. A cap, of the same bright green, rested on the upper
part of her forehead, a green-and-gold feather on its left side
glittering as the sun's rays played upon it. It was a style of dress
which had not yet been seen at Prior's Ash, and was regarded with some
doubt. But, as you are aware, it is not a dress in itself which is
condemned or approved: it depends upon who wears it: and as the young
lady wearing this was just now the fashion at Prior's Ash, feather and
habit were taken into favour forthwith. She could have worn none more
adapted to her peculiar style of beauty.

Bending to his very saddle-bow, as he talked to her--for, though she was
tall, he was taller still--was a gentleman of courtly mien. In his fine
upright figure, his fair complexion and wavy hair, his chiselled
features and dark blue eyes, might be traced a strong resemblance to Sir
George Godolphin. But the lips had a more ready smile upon them than Sir
George's had ever worn, for his had always been somewhat of the
sternest; the blue eyes twinkled with a gayer light when gazing into
other eyes, than could ever have been charged upon Sir George. But the
bright complexion had been Sir George's once; giving to his face, as it
now did to his son's, a delicate beauty, almost as that of woman.
"Graceless George," old Sir George was fond of calling him; but it was
an appellation given in love, in pride, in admiration. He bent to his
saddle-bow, and his gay blue eyes flashed with unmistakable admiration
into those black ones as he talked to the lady: and the black eyes most
certainly flashed admiration back again. Dangerous eyes were those of
Charlotte Pain's! And not altogether lovable.

"Do you always keep your promises as you kept that one yesterday?" she
was asking him.

"I did not make a promise yesterday--that I remember. Had I made one to
you, I should have kept it."

"Fickle and faithless," she cried. "Men's promises are as words traced
upon the sand. When you met me yesterday in the carriage with Mrs.
Verrall, and she asked you to take compassion on two forlorn dames, and
come to Ashlydyat in the evening and dissipate our ennui, what was your
answer?"

"That I would do so, if it were possible."

"Was nothing more explicit implied?"

George Godolphin laughed. Perhaps his conscience told him that he _had_
implied more, in a certain pressure he remembered giving to that fair
hand, which was resting now, gauntleted, upon her reins. Gay George had
meant to dissipate Ashlydyat's ennui, if nothing more tempting offered.
But something more tempting did offer: and he had spent the evening in
the company of one who was more to him than was Charlotte Pain.

"An unavoidable engagement arose, Miss Pain. Otherwise you may rely upon
it I should have been at Ashlydyat."

"Unavoidable!" she replied, her eyes gleaming with something very like
anger into those which smiled on her. "I know what your engagement was.
You were at Lady Godolphin's Folly."

"Right. Commanded to it by my father."

"Oh!"

"Solicited, if not absolutely commanded," he continued. "And a wish from
Sir George now bears its weight: we may not have him very long with us."

A smile of mockery, pretty and fascinating to look upon, played upon her
rich red lips. "It is edifying to hear these filial sentiments expressed
by Mr. George Godolphin! Take you care, sir, to act up to them."

"Do you think I need the injunction? How shall I make my peace with
you?"

"By coming to Ashlydyat some other evening while the present moon lasts.
I mean, while it illumines the early part of the evening."

She dropped her voice to a low key, and her tone had changed to
seriousness. George Godolphin looked at her in surprise.

"What is the superstition," she continued to whisper, "that attaches to
Ashlydyat?"

"Why do you ask me this?" he hastily said.

"Because, yesterday evening, when I was sitting on that seat under the
ash-trees, watching the road from Lady Godolphin's Folly--well, watching
for you, if you like it better: but I can assure you there is nothing in
the avowal that need excite your vanity, as I see it is doing. When a
gentleman makes a promise, I expect him to keep it; and, looking upon
your coming as a matter of course, I did watch for you; as I might watch
for one of Mrs. Verrall's servants, had I sent him on an errand and
expected his return."

"Thank you," said George Godolphin, with a laugh. "But suffer my vanity
to rest in abeyance for a while, will you, and go on with what you were
saying?"

"Are you a convert to the superstition?" she inquired, disregarding the
request.

"N--o," replied George Godolphin. But his voice sounded strangely
indecisive. "Pray continue, Charlotte."

It was the first time he had ever called her by her Christian name: and
though she saw that it was done in the unconscious excitement of the
moment, her cheeks flushed to a deeper crimson.

"Did you ever see the Shadow?" she breathed.

He bowed his head.

"What form does it take?"

George Godolphin did not answer. He appeared lost in thought, as he
scored his horse's neck with his hunting-whip.

"The form of a bier, on which rests something covered with a pall, that
may be supposed to be a coffin; with a mourner at the head and one at
the foot?" she whispered.

He bowed his head again: very gravely.

"Then I saw it last night. I did indeed. I was sitting under the
ash-trees, and I saw a strange shadow in the moonlight that I had never
seen before----"

"Where?" he interrupted.

"In that wild-looking part of the grounds as you look across from the
ash-trees. Just in front of the archway, where the ground is bare. It
was there. Mr. Verrall says he wonders Sir George does not have those
gorse-bushes cleared away, and the ground converted into civilized land,
like the rest of it."

"It has been done, but the bushes grow again."

"Well, I was sitting there, and I saw this unusual shadow. It arrested
my eye at once. Where did it come from, I wondered: what cast it? I
never thought of the Ashlydyat superstition; never for a moment. I only
thought what a strange appearance the shadow wore. I thought of a
lying-in-state; I thought of a state funeral, where the coffin rests on
a bier, and a mourner sits at the head and a mourner at the foot. Shall
I tell you," she suddenly broke off, "what the scene altogether looked
like?"

"Do so."

"Like a graveyard. They may well call it the Dark Plain! The shadow
might be taken for a huge tomb with two images weeping over it, and the
bushes around assumed the form of lesser ones. Some, square; some, long;
some, high; some, low; but all looking not unlike graves in the
moonlight."

"Moonlight shadows are apt to bear fanciful forms to a vivid
imagination, Miss Pain," he lightly observed.

"Have not others indulged the same fancy before me? I remember to have
heard so."

"As they have said. They never took the form to my sight," he returned,
with a half-smile of ridicule. "When I know bushes to be bushes, I
cannot by any stretch of imagination magnify them into graves. You must
have had this Ashlydyat nonsense in your head."

"I have assured you that I had not," she rejoined in a firm tone. "It
was only after I had been regarding it for some time--and the longer I
looked, the plainer the shadow seemed to grow--that I thought of the
Ashlydyat tale. All in an instant the truth flashed upon me--that it
must be the apparition----"

"The _what_, Miss Pain?"

"Does the word offend you? It _is_ a foolish one. The Shadow, then. I
remembered that the Shadow, so dreaded by the Godolphins, did take the
form of a bier, with mourners weeping at its----"

"Was said to take it," he interposed, in a tone of quiet reproof; "that
would be the better phrase. And, in speaking of the Shadow being dreaded
by the Godolphins, you allude, I presume, to the Godolphins of the past
ages. I know of none in the present who dread it: except my
superstitious sister, Janet."

"How touchy you are upon the point!" she cried, with a light laugh. "Do
you know, George Godolphin, that that very touchiness betrays the fact
that you, for one, are not exempt from the dread. And," she added,
changing her tone again to one of serious sympathy, "did not the dread
help to kill Mrs. Godolphin?"

"No," he gravely answered. "If you give ear to all the stories that the
old wives of the neighbourhood love to indulge in, you will collect a
valuable stock of fable-lore."

"Let it pass. If I repeated the fable, it was because I had heard it.
But now you will understand why I felt vexed last night when you did not
come. It was not for your sweet company I was pining, as your vanity has
been assuming, but that I wanted you to see the Shadow.--How that girl
is fixing her eyes upon us!"

George Godolphin turned at the last sentence, which was uttered
abruptly. An open barouche had drawn up, and its occupants, two ladies,
were both looking towards them. The one was a young girl with a pale
gentle face and dark eyes, as remarkable for their refined sweetness, as
Miss Pain's were for their brilliancy. The other was a little lady of
middle age, dressed youthfully, and whose naturally fair complexion was
so excessively soft and clear, as to give a suspicion that nature had
less hand in it than art. It was Lady Godolphin. She held her eye-glass
to her eye, and turned it on the crowd.

"Maria, whatever is that on horseback?" she asked. "It looks green."

"It is Charlotte Pain in a bright-green riding-habit," was the young
lady's answer.

"A bright-green riding-habit! And her head seems to glitter! Has she
anything in her cap?"

"It appears to be a gold feather."

"She must look beautiful! Very handsome, does she not?"

"For those who admire her style--very," replied Maria Hastings.

Which was certainly not the style of Maria Hastings. Quiet, retiring,
gentle, she could only wonder at those who dressed in bright-coloured
habits with gold buttons and feathers, and followed the hounds over
gates and ditches. Miss Hastings wore a pretty white silk bonnet, and
grey cashmere mantle. Nothing could be plainer; but then, she was a
clergyman's daughter.

"It is on these occasions that I regret my deficient sight," said Lady
Godolphin. "Who is that, in scarlet, talking to her? It resembles the
figure of George Godolphin."

"It is he," said Maria. "He is coming towards us."

He was piloting his horse through the throng, returning greetings from
every one. A universal favourite was George Godolphin. Charlotte Pain's
fine eyes were following him with somewhat dimmed brilliancy: he was not
so entirely hers as she could wish to see him.

"How are you this morning, Lady Godolphin?" But it was on the hand of
Maria Hastings that his own lingered; and her cheeks took the hue of
Charlotte Pain's, as he bent low to whisper words that were all too
dear.

"George, do you know that your father is here?" said Lady Godolphin.

George, in his surprise, drew himself upright on his horse. "My father
here! Is he, indeed?"

"Yes; and on horseback. Very unwise of him; but he would not be
persuaded out of it. It was a sudden resolution that he appeared to
take. I suppose the beauty of the morning tempted him. Miss Maria
Hastings, what nonsense has George been saying to you? Your face is as
red as his coat."

"That is what I was saying to her," laughed George Godolphin. "Asking
her where her cheeks had borrowed their roses from."

A parting of the crowd brought Sir George Godolphin within view, and the
family drew together in a group. Up went Lady Godolphin's glass again.

"Is that Bessy? My dear, with whom did you come?"

"I came by myself, Lady Godolphin. I walked."

"Oh dear!" uttered Lady Godolphin. "You do do the wildest things, Bessy!
And Sir George allows you to do them!"

"Sir George does not," spoke the knight. "Sir George has already desired
her to take her place in the carriage. Open the door, James."

Bessy laughed as she stepped into it. She cheerfully obeyed her father;
but anything like ceremony, or, as the world may call it, etiquette, she
waged war with.

"I expected to meet your sisters here, Bessy," said Lady Godolphin. "I
want you all to dine with me to-day. We must celebrate the first
reappearance of your father. You will bear the invitation to them."

"Certainly," said Bessy. "We shall be happy to come. I know Janet has no
engagement."

"An early dinner, mind: five o'clock. Sir George cannot wait."

"To dine at supper-time," chimed in unfashionable Bessy. "George, do you
hear? Lady Godolphin's at five."

A movement; a rush; a whirl. The hounds were preparing to throw off, and
the field was gathering. George Godolphin hastily left the side of Miss
Hastings, though he found time for a stolen whisper.

"Fare you well, my dearest."

And when she next saw him, after the noise and confusion had cleared
away, he was galloping in the wake of the baying pack, side by side with
Charlotte Pain.




CHAPTER II.

LADY GODOLPHIN'S FOLLY.


Prior's Ash was not a large town, though of some importance in county
estimation. In the days of the monks, when all good people were Roman
Catholics, or professed to be, it had been but a handful of houses,
which various necessities had caused to spring up round the priory: a
flourishing and crowded establishment of religious men then; a place
marked but by a few ruins now. In process of time the handful of houses
had increased to several handfuls, the handfuls to a village, and the
village to a borough town; still retaining the name bestowed on it by
the monks--"Prior's Ash."

In the heart of the town was situated the banking-house of Godolphin,
Crosse, and Godolphin. It was an old-established and most respected
firm, sound and wealthy. The third partner and second Godolphin,
mentioned in it, was Thomas Godolphin, Sir George Godolphin's eldest
son. Until he joined it, it had been Godolphin and Crosse. It was a
matter of arrangement, understood by Mr. Crosse, that when anything
happened to Sir George, Thomas would step into his father's place, as
head of the firm, and George, whose name at present did not appear,
though he had been long in the bank, would represent the last name; so
that it would still remain Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin. Mr. Crosse,
who, like Sir George, was getting in years, was remarkable for nothing
but a close attention to business. He was a widower, without children,
and Prior's Ash wondered who would be the better for the filling of his
garners.

The Godolphins could trace back to the ages of the monks. But of no very
high ancestry boasted they; no titles, places, or honours; they ranked
among the landed gentry as owners of Ashlydyat, and that was all. It was
quite enough for them: to be lords of Ashlydyat was an honour they would
not have bartered for a dukedom. They held by Ashlydyat. It was their
pride, their stronghold, their boast. Had feudal times been in fashion
now, they would have dug a moat around it, and fenced it in with
fortifications, and called it their castle. Why did they so love it? It
was but a poor place at best; nothing to look at; and, in the matter of
space inside, was somewhat straitened. Oak-panelled rooms, dark as
mahogany and garnished with cross beams, low ceilings, and mullioned
windows, are not the most consonant to modern taste. People thought that
the Godolphins loved it from its associations and traditions; from the
very fact that certain superstitions attached to it. Foolish
superstitions, you will be inclined to call them, as contrasted with the
enlightenment of these matter-of-fact days--I had almost said these days
of materialism.

Ashlydyat was not entailed. There was a clause in the old deeds of
tenure which prevented it. A wicked Godolphin (by which complimentary
appellation his descendants distinguished him) had cut off the entail,
and gambled the estate away; and though the Godolphins recovered it
again in the course of one or two lives, the entail was not renewed. It
was now bequeathed from father to son, and was always the residence of
the reigning Godolphin. Thomas Godolphin knew that it would become his
on the death of his father, as surely as if he were the heir by entail.
The late Mr. Godolphin, Sir George's father, had lived and died in it.
Sir George succeeded, and then _he_ lived in it--with his wife and
children. But he was not Sir George then: therefore, for a few minutes,
while speaking of this part of his life; we will call him what he
was--Mr. Godolphin. A pensive, thoughtful woman was Mrs. Godolphin,
never too strong in health. She was Scotch by birth. Of her children,
Thomas and Janet most resembled her; Bessy was like no one but herself:
George and Cecilia inherited the beauty of their father. There was
considerable difference in the ages of the children, for they had
numbered thirteen. Thomas was the eldest, Cecilia the youngest; Janet,
Bessy, and George were between them; and the rest, who had also been
between them, had died, most of them in infancy. But, a moment yet, to
give a word to the description of Ashlydyat, before speaking of the
death of Mrs. Godolphin.

Passing out of Prior's Ash towards the west, a turning to the left of
the high-road took you to Ashlydyat. Built of greystone, and lying
somewhat in a hollow, it wore altogether a gloomy appearance. And it was
intensely ugly. A low building of two storeys, irregularly built, with
gables and nooks and ins-and-outs of corners, and a square turret in the
middle, which was good for nothing but the birds to build on. It wore a
time-honoured look, though, with all its ugliness, and the moss grew,
green and picturesque, on its walls. Perhaps on the principle, or, let
us say, by the subtle instinct of nature, that a mother loves a deformed
child with a deeper affection than she feels for her other children, who
are fair and sound of limb, did the Godolphins feel pride in their
inheritance because it was ugly. But the grounds around it were
beautiful, and the landscape, so much of it as could be seen from that
unelevated spot, was most grand to look upon. A full view might be
obtained from the turret, though it was somewhat of a mount to get to
it. Dark groves, and bright undulating lawns, shady spots where the
water rippled, pleasant to bask in on a summer's day, sunny parterres of
gay flowers scenting the air; charming, indeed, were the environs of
Ashlydyat. All, except one spot: and that had charms also for some
minds--sombre ones.

In one part of the grounds there grew a great quantity of ash-trees--and
it was supposed, though not known, that these trees may originally have
suggested the name, Ashlydyat: as they most certainly had that of
Prior's Ash, given to the village by the monks. A few people wrote it in
accordance with its pronunciation, Ash-_lid_-yat, but the old way of
spelling it was retained by the family. As the village had swollen into
a town, the ash-trees, growing there, were cleared away as necessity
required; but the town was surrounded with them still.

Opposite to the ash-trees on the estate of Ashlydyat there extended a
waste plain, totally out of keeping with the high cultivation around. It
looked like a piece of rude common. Bushes of furze, broom, and other
stunted shrubs grew upon it, none of them rising above the height of a
two-year-old child. The description given by Charlotte Pain to George
Godolphin was not an inapt one--that the place, with these stunted
bushes on it, looked in the moonlight not unlike a graveyard. At the
extremity, opposite to the ash-trees, there arose a high archway, a
bridge built of greystone. It appeared to have formed part of an ancient
fortification, but there was no trace of water having run beneath it.
Beyond the archway was a low round building, looking like an isolated
windmill without sails. It was built of greystone also, and was called
the belfry: though there was as little sign of bells ever having been in
it, as there was of water beneath the bridge. The archway had been kept
from decay; the belfry had not, but was open in places to the heavens.

Strange to say, the appellation of this waste piece of land, with its
wild bushes, was the "Dark Plain." Why? The plain was not dark: it was
not shaded: it stood out, broad and open, in the full glare of sunlight.
That certain dark tales had been handed down with the appellation, is
true: and these may have given rise to the name. Immediately before the
archway, for some considerable space, the ground was entirely bare. Not
a blade of grass, not a shrub grew on it. Or, as the story went, _would_
grow. It was on this spot that the appearance, the Shadow, as mentioned
by Charlotte Pain, would be sometimes seen. Whence the Shadow came,
whether it was ghostly or earthly, whether those learned in science and
philosophy could account for it by Nature's laws, whether it was cast by
any gaseous vapour arising in the moonbeams, I am unable to say. If you
ask me to explain it, I cannot. If you ask, why then do I write about
it, I can only answer, because I have seen it. I have seen it with my
own unprejudiced eyes; I have sat and watched it, in its strange
stillness; I have looked about and around it, low down, high up, for
some substance, ever so infinitesimal, that might cast its shade and
enable me to account for it: and I have looked in vain. Had the moon
been behind the archway, instead of behind _me_, that might have
furnished a loophole of explanation: a very poor and inefficient
loophole; a curious one also: for how can an archway in the substance be
a bier and two mourners in its shadow? but, still, better than none.

No; there was nothing whatever, so far as human eyes--and I can tell you
that keen ones and sceptical ones have looked at it--to cast the shade,
or to account for it. There, as you sat and watched, stretched out the
plain in the moonlight, with its low, tomb-like bushes, its clear space
of bare land, the archway rising behind it. But, on the spot of bare
land, before the archway, would rise the Shadow; not looking as if it
were a shadow cast on the ground, but a palpable fact: as if a bier,
with its two bending mourners, actually stood there in the substance. I
say that I cannot explain it, or attempt to explain it; but I do say
that there it was to be seen. Not often: sometimes not for years
together. It was called the Shadow of Ashlydyat: and superstition told
that its appearance foreshadowed the approach of calamity, whether of
death or other evil, to the Godolphins. The greater the evil that was
coming upon them, the plainer and more distinct would be the appearance
of the Shadow--the longer the space of time that it would be observed.
Rumour went, that once, on the approach of some terrible misfortune, it
had been seen for months and months before, whenever the moon was
sufficiently bright. The Godolphins did not care to have the subject
mentioned to them: in their scepticism, they (some of them, at least)
treated it with ridicule, or else with silence. But, like disbelievers
of a different sort, the scepticism was more in profession than in
heart. The Godolphins, in their inmost soul, would cower at the
appearance of that shadowed bier; as those others have been known to
cower, in their anguish, at the approach of the shadow of death.

This was not all the superstition attaching to Ashlydyat: but you will
probably deem this quite enough for the present. And we have to return
to Mrs. Godolphin.

Five years before the present time, when pretty Cecilia was in her
fifteenth year, and most needed the guidance of a mother, Mrs. Godolphin
died. Her illness had been of a lingering nature; little hope in it,
from the first. It was towards the latter period of her illness that
what had been regarded by four-fifths of Prior's Ash as an absurd
child's tale, a superstition unworthy the notice of the present-day men
and women, grew to be talked of in whispers, as something "strange." For
three months antecedent to the death of Mrs. Godolphin, the Shadow of
Ashlydyat was to be seen every light night, and all Prior's Ash flocked
up to look at it. That they went, is of no consequence: they had their
walk and their gaze for their pains: but that Mrs. Godolphin should have
been told of it, was. She was in the grounds alone one balmy moonlight
night, later than she ought to have been, and she discerned people
walking in them, making for the ash-trees.

"What can those people be doing here?" she exclaimed to one of her
servants, who was returning to Ashlydyat from executing an errand in the
town.

"It is to see the Shadow, ma'am," whispered the girl, in answer, with
more direct truth than prudence.

Mrs. Godolphin paused. "The _Shadow_!" she uttered. "Is the Shadow to be
seen?"

"It has been there ever since last moon, ma'am. It never was so plain,
they say."

Mrs. Godolphin waited her opportunity, and, when the intruders had
dispersed, proceeded to the ash-trees. It is as well to observe that
these ash-trees, and also the Dark Plain, though very near to the house,
were not in the more private portion of the grounds.

Mrs. Godolphin proceeded to the ash-trees. An hour afterwards, her
absence from the house was discovered, and they went out to search. It
was her husband who found her. She pointed to the shadow, and spoke.

"You will believe that my death is coming on quickly now, George." But
Mr. Godolphin turned it off with an attempt at joke, and told her she
was old enough to know better.

Mrs. Godolphin died. Two years after, Mr. Godolphin came into contact
with a wealthy young widow; young, as compared with himself: Mrs.
Campbell. He met her in Scotland, at the residence of his first wife's
friends. She was English born, but her husband had been Scotch. Mr.
Godolphin married her, and brought her to Ashlydyat. The step did not
give pleasure to his children. When sons and daughters are of the age
that the Godolphins were, a new wife, brought home to rule, rarely does
give pleasure to the first family. Things did not go on very
comfortably: there were faults on each side; on that of Mrs. Godolphin,
and on that of her step-daughters. After a while, a change was made.
Thomas Godolphin and his sisters went to reside in the house attached to
the bank, a handsome modern residence hitherto occupied by Mr. Crosse.
"You had better come here," that gentleman had said to them: he was no
stranger to the unpleasantness at Ashlydyat. "I will take up my abode in
the country," he continued. "I would prefer to do so. I am getting to
feel older than I did twenty years ago, and country air may renovate
me."

The arrangement was carried out. Thomas Godolphin and his three sisters
entered upon their residence in Prior's Ash, Janet acting as mistress of
the house, and as chaperon to her sisters. She was then past thirty: a
sad, thoughtful woman, who lived much in the inward life.

Just about the time of this change, certain doings of local and public
importance were enacted in the neighbourhood, in which Mr. Godolphin
took a prominent share. There ensued a proposal to knight him. He
started from it with aversion. His family started also: they and he
alike despised these mushroom honours. Not so Mrs. Godolphin. From the
moment that the first word of the suggestion was breathed to her, she
determined that it should be carried out; for the appellation, my lady,
was as incense in her ears. In vain Mr. Godolphin strove to argue with
her: her influence was in the ascendant, and he lay under the spell. At
length he yielded; and, though hot war raged in his heart, he bent his
haughty knee at the court of St. James's, and rose up Sir George.

"After a storm comes a calm." A proverb pleasant to remember in some of
the sharp storms of life. Mrs. Godolphin had carried her point in being
too many for her step-daughters; she had triumphed over opposition and
become my lady; and now she settled down in calmness at Ashlydyat. But
she grew dissatisfied. She was a woman who had no resources within
herself, who lived only in excitement, and Ashlydyat's quietness
overwhelmed her with ennui. She did not join in the love of the
Godolphins for Ashlydyat. Mr. Godolphin, ere he had brought her home to
it, a bride, had spoken so warmly of the place, in his attachment to it,
that she had believed she was about to step into some modern paradise:
instead of which, she found, as she expressed it, a "cranky old house,
full of nothing but passages." The dislike she formed for it in that
early moment never was overcome.

She would beguile her husband to her own pretty place in Berwickshire;
and, just at first, he was willing to be beguiled. But after he became
Sir George (not that the title had anything to do with it) public local
business grew upon him, and he found it inconvenient to quit Ashlydyat.
He explained this to Lady Godolphin: and said their sojourn in Scotland
must be confined to an autumn visit. So she perforce dragged out her
days at Ashlydyat, idle and listless.

We warn our children that idleness is the root of all evil; that it will
infallibly lead into mischief those who indulge in it. It so led Lady
Godolphin. One day, as she was looking from her drawing-room windows,
wishing all sorts of things. That she lived in her pleasant home in
Berwickshire; that she could live amidst the gaieties of London; that
Ashlydyat was not such a horrid old place; that it was more modern and
less ugly; that its reception-rooms were lofty, and garnished with
gilding and glitter, instead of being low, gloomy, and grim; and that it
was situated on an eminence, instead of on a flat, so that a better view
of the lovely scenery around might be obtained. On that gentle rise,
opposite, for instance--what would be more enchanting than to enjoy a
constant view from thence? If Ashlydyat could be transported there, as
they carry out wooden houses to set up abroad; or, if only that one
room, she then stood in, could, with its windows----

Lady Godolphin's thoughts arrested themselves here. An idea had flashed
upon her. Why should she not build a pretty summer-house on that hill; a
pavilion? The Countess of Cavemore, in this very county, had done such a
thing: had built a pavilion on a hill within view of the windows of
Cavemore House, and had called it "Lady Cavemore's Folly." Only the week
before, she, Lady Godolphin, in driving past it, had thought what a
pretty place it looked; what a charming prospect must be obtained from
it. Why should she not do the same?

The idea grew into shape and form. It would not leave her again. She had
plenty of money of her own, and she would work out her "Folly" to the
very top of its bent.

To the top of its bent, indeed! None can tell what a thing will grow
into when it is first begun. Lady Godolphin made known her project to
Sir George, who, though he saw no particular need for the work, did not
object to it. If Lady Godolphin chose to spend money in that way, she
might do so. So it was put in hand. Architects, builders, decorators
were called together; and the Folly was planned out and begun. Lady
Godolphin had done with ennui now; she found employment for her days, in
watching the progress of the pavilion.

It is said that the consummation of our schemes generally brings with it
a share of disappointment. It did so in this instance to Lady Godolphin.
The Folly turned out to be a really pretty place; the views from its
windows magnificent; and Lady Godolphin was as enchanted as a child with
a new toy. The disappointment arose from the fact that she could not
make the Folly her home. After spending a morning in it, or an evening,
she must leave it to return to that grey Ashlydyat--the only eyesore to
be seen, when gazing from the Folly's windows. If a day turned out wet,
she could not walk to the Folly; if she was expecting visitors she must
stay at home to receive them; if Sir George felt ill--and his health was
then beginning to suffer--she could not leave him for her darling Folly.
It was darling because it was new: in six months' time, Lady Godolphin
would have grown tired of it; have rarely entered it: but in her present
mood, it was all-in-all to her.

Slowly she formed the resolution to enlarge the Folly--slowly for her,
for she deliberated upon it for two whole days. She would add "a
reception-room or two," "a bedroom or two," "a kitchen," so that she
might be enabled, when she chose to do so, to take up her abode in it
for a week. And these additions were begun.

But they did not end; did not end as she had intended. As the Folly
grew, so grew the ideas of Lady Godolphin: there must be a suite of
reception-rooms, there must be several bedrooms, there must be domestic
offices in proportion. Sir George told her that she would spend a
fortune upon it; my lady answered that, at any rate, she should have
something to show for the outlay.

At length it was completed: and Lady Godolphin's Folly--for it retained
its appellation--stood out to the view of Prior's Ash, which it
overlooked; to the view of Ashlydyat; to the view of the country
generally, as a fair, moderate-sized, attractive residence, built in the
villa style, its white walls dazzling the eye when the sun shone upon
them.

"We will reside there, and let Ashlydyat," said Lady Godolphin to her
husband.

"Reside at the Folly! Leave Ashlydyat!" he repeated, in consternation.
"It could not be."

"It will be," she added, with a half self-willed, half-caressing laugh.
"Why could it not be?"

Sir George fell into a reverie. He admired the modern conveniences of
the Folly, greatly admired the lovely scenery, that, look from which
room of it he would, charmed his eye. But for one thing, he had been
content to do as she wished, and go to live there. That one thing--what
was it? Hear the low-breathed, reluctant words he is beginning to say to
Lady Godolphin.

"There is an old tradition in our family--a superstition I suppose you
will call it--that if the Godolphins leave Ashlydyat, their ruin is at
hand."

Lady Godolphin stared at him in amazement. Nothing had surprised her on
her arrival at Ashlydyat, like the stories of marvel which she had been
obliged to hear. Sir George had cast ridicule on them, if alluded to in
his presence; therefore, when the above words dropped from him, she
could only wonder. You might search a town through and not find one less
prone to superstition than was Lady Godolphin: in all that belonged to
it, she was a very heathen. Sir George hastened to explain away his
words.

"The tradition is nothing, and I regard it as nothing. That such a one
has been handed down is certain, and it may have given rise to the
reluctance, which the early Godolphins entertained, to quit Ashlydyat.
But that is not our reason: in remaining in it, we only obey a father's
behest. You are aware that Ashlydyat is not entailed. It is bequeathed
by will from father to son; and to the bequest in each will, so far as I
have cognizance of the past wills, there has always been appended a
clause--a request--I should best say an injunction--never to quit
Ashlydyat. 'When once you shall have come into possession of Ashlydyat,
guard it as your stronghold: resign it neither to your heir nor to a
stranger: remain in it until death shall take you.' It was inserted in
my father's will, by which Ashlydyat became mine: it is inserted in
mine, which devises the estate to Thomas."

"If ever I heard so absurd a story!" uttered Lady Godolphin in her
pretty childish manner. "Do I understand you to say that, if you left
Ashlydyat to take up your abode elsewhere, it would be no longer yours?"

"Not that, not that," returned Sir George. "Ashlydyat is mine until my
death, and no power can take it from me. But a reluctance to leave
Ashlydyat has always clung to the Godolphins: in fact, we have looked
upon it as a step impossible to be taken."

"What a state of thraldom to live in!"

"Pardon me. We love Ashlydyat. To remain in it is pleasant; to leave it
would be pain. I speak of the Godolphins in general; of those who have
preceded me."

"I understand now," said Lady Godolphin resentfully. "You hold a
superstition that if you were to leave Ashlydyat for the Folly, some
dreadful doom would overtake you. Sir George, I thought we lived in the
nineteenth century."

A passing flush rose to the face of Sir George Godolphin. To be
suspected of leaning to these superstitions chafed his mind unbearably;
he had almost rather be accused of dishonour: not to his own heart would
he admit that they might have weight with him. "Ashlydyat is our
homestead," he said, "and when a man has a homestead, he likes to live
and die in it."

"You cannot think Ashlydyat so desirable a residence as the Folly. We
_must_ remove to the Folly, Sir George; I have set my heart upon it. Let
Thomas and his sisters come back to Ashlydyat."

"They would not come."

"Not come! They were inwardly rebellious enough at having to leave it."

"I am sure that Thomas would not take up his residence here, as the
master of Ashlydyat, during my lifetime. Another thing: we should not be
justified in keeping up two expensive establishments outside the town,
leaving the house at the bank to lie idle. People might lose confidence
in us, if they saw us launching forth into extravagance."

"Oh, indeed! What did they think of the expense launched upon the
Folly?" mockingly smiled my lady.

"They know it is your money which has built that: not mine."

"If Thomas and the rest came to Ashlydyat you might let the house
attached to the bank."

"It would take a great deal more money to keep up Ashlydyat than it does
the house at the bank. The public might lose confidence in us, I say.
Besides, no one but a partner could be allowed to live at the bank."

"You seem to find an answer to all my propositions," said Lady
Godolphin, in her softest and sweetest, and least true tone; "but I warn
you, Sir George, that I shall win you over to my way of thinking before
the paper shall be dry on the Folly's walls. If Thomas cannot, or will
not, live at Ashlydyat, you must let it."

In every tittle did Lady Godolphin carry out her words. Almost before
the Folly's embellishments were matured to receive them, Sir George was
won over to live at it: and Ashlydyat was advertised to be let. Thomas
Godolphin would not have become its master in his father's lifetime had
Sir George filled its rooms with gold as a bribe. His mother had
contrived to imbue him with some of the Ashlydyat superstition--to which
_she_ had lived a slave--and Thomas, though he did not bow down to it,
would not brave it. If ruin was to come--as some religiously
believed--when a reigning Godolphin voluntarily abandoned Ashlydyat,
Thomas, at least, would not help it on by taking part in the step. So
Ashlydyat, to the intense astonishment of Prior's Ash, was put up in the
market for hire.

It was taken by a Mr. Verrall; a gentleman from London. Prior's Ash knew
nothing of him, except that he was fond of field sports, and appeared to
be a man of money: but, the fact of his establishing himself at
Ashlydyat, stamped him, in their estimation, as one worthy to be
courted. His wife was a pretty, fascinating woman; her sister, Miss
Pain, was beautiful; their entertainments were good, their style was
dashing, and they became the fashion in the neighbourhood.

But, from the very first day that the step was mooted of Sir George
Godolphin's taking up his residence at the Folly, until that of his
removal thither, the Shadow had hovered over the Dark Plain at
Ashlydyat.




CHAPTER III.

THE DARK PLAIN IN THE MOONLIGHT.


The beams of the setting sun streamed into the dining-room at Lady
Godolphin's Folly. A room of fine proportions; not dull and heavy, as it
is much the custom for dining-rooms to be, but light and graceful as
could be wished.

Sir George Godolphin, with his fine old beauty, sat at one end of the
table; Lady Godolphin, good-looking also in her peculiar style, was
opposite to him. She wore a white dress, its make remarkably young, and
her hair fell in ringlets, young also. On her right hand sat Thomas
Godolphin, courteous and calm, as he ever was; on her left hand was
Bessy, whom you have already seen. On the right of Sir George sat Maria
Hastings, singularly attractive in her quiet loveliness, in her white
spotted muslin dress with its white ribbons. On his left sat his eldest
daughter, Janet. Quiet in manner, plain in features, as was Thomas, her
eyes were yet wonderful to behold. Not altogether for their beauty, but
for the power they appeared to contain of seeing all things. Large,
reflective, strangely-deep eyes, grey, with a circlet of darker grey
round them. When they were cast upon you, it was not at you they looked,
but at what was within you--at your mind, your thoughts; at least, such
was the impression they conveyed. She and Bessy were dressed alike, in
grey watered silk. Cecil sat between Janet and Thomas, a charming girl,
with blue ribbons in her hair. George sat between his sister Bessy and
Maria Hastings. Thomas was attired much as he had been in the morning:
George had exchanged his hunting clothes for dinner dress.

Lady Godolphin was speaking of her visit to Scotland. Sir George's
illness had caused it to be put off, or they would have gone in August:
it was proposed to proceed thither now. "I have written finally to say
that we shall be there on Tuesday," she observed.

"Will papa be able to make the journey in one day?" asked Bessy.

"He says he is quite strong enough to do so now," replied Lady
Godolphin. "But I could not think of his running any risk, so we shall
stay a night upon the road. Janet, will you believe that I had a battle
with Mr. Hastings to-day?"

Janet turned her strange eyes on Lady Godolphin. "Had you, madam?"

"I consider Mr. Hastings the most unreasonable, changeable man I ever
met with," complained Lady Godolphin. "But clergymen are apt to be so.
So obstinate, if they take up a thing! When Maria was invited to
accompany us in August, Mr. Hastings made not a single demur neither he
nor Mrs. Hastings: they bought her--oh, all sorts of new things for the
visit. New dresses and bonnets; and--a new cloak, was it not, Maria?"

Maria smiled. "Yes, Lady Godolphin."

"People who have never been in Scotland acquire the notion that in
temperature it may be matched with the North Pole, so a warm cloak was
provided for Maria for an August visit! I called at the Rectory to-day
with Maria, after the hounds had thrown off, to tell them that we should
depart next week, and Mr. Hastings wanted to withdraw his consent to her
going. "Too late in the season," he urged, or some such plea. I told him
she should not be frozen; we should be back before the cold weather set
in."

Maria lifted her sweet face, an earnest look upon it. "It was not the
cold papa thought of, Lady Godolphin: he knows I am too hardy to fear
that. But, as winter approaches, there is so much more to do, both at
home and abroad. Mamma has to be out a great deal: and this will be a
heavy winter with the poor, after all the sickness."

"The sickness has passed," exclaimed Lady Godolphin, in a tone so sharp,
so eager, as to give rise to a suspicion that she might fear, or had
feared, the sickness for herself.

"Nearly so," assented Miss Godolphin. "There have been no fresh cases
since----"

"Janet, if you talk of 'fresh cases' at my table, I shall retire from
it," interrupted Lady Godolphin in agitation. "Is fever a pleasant or
fitting topic of conversation, pray?"

Janet Godolphin bowed her head. "I did not forget your fears, madam. I
supposed, however, that, now that the sickness is subsiding, your
objection to hearing it spoken of might have subsided also."

"And how did the controversy with Mr. Hastings end?" interposed Bessy,
to turn the topic. "Is Maria to go?"

"Of course she is to go," said Lady Godolphin, with a quiet little laugh
of power, as she recovered her good-humour. "When I wish a thing, I
generally carry my point. I would not stir from his room until he gave
his consent, and he had his sermon on the table, and was no doubt
wishing me at the antipodes. He thought Maria had already paid me a
visit long enough for Sir George to have grown tired of her, he said. I
told him that it was not his business: and that whether Sir George or
any one else was tired of her, I should take her to Scotland. So he
yielded."

Maria Hastings glanced timidly at Sir George. He saw the look. "Not
tired of you yet, are we, Miss Hastings?" he said, with, Maria fancied,
more gallantry than warmth. But fancy, with Maria, sometimes went a
great way.

"It would have been a disappointment to Maria," pursued Lady Godolphin.
"Would it not, my dear?"

"Yes," she answered, her face flushing.

"And so very dull for Charlotte Pain. I expressly told her when I
invited her that Maria Hastings would be of the party."

"Charlotte Pain!" echoed Bessy Godolphin, in her quick way; "is she
going with you? What in the world is that for?"

"I invited her, I say," said Lady Godolphin, with a hard look on her
bloom-tinted face: a look that it always wore when her wishes were
questioned, her actions reflected on. None brooked interference less
than Lady Godolphin.

Sir George bent his head slightly towards his wife. "My dear, I
considered that Charlotte Pain invited herself. She fished pretty
strongly for the invitation, and you fell into the snare."

"Snare! It is an honour and a pleasure that she should come with us.
What do you mean, Sir George?"

"An honour, if you like to call it so; I am sure it will be a pleasure,"
replied Sir George. "A most attractive young woman is Charlotte Pain:
though she did angle for the invitation. George, take care how you play
your cards."

"What cards, sir?"

"Look at that graceless George! at his conscious vanity!" exclaimed Sir
George to the table generally. "He knows who it is that makes the
attraction here to Charlotte Pain. Wear her if you can win her, my boy."

"Would Charlotte Pain be one worthy to be won by George Godolphin?"
quietly spoke Janet.

"Rumour says she has thirty thousand charms," nodded Sir George.

"I never would marry for money, if I were George," cried Cecil
indignantly. "And, papa, I do not see so much beauty in Charlotte Pain.
I do not like her style."

"Cecil, did you ever know one pretty girl like the 'style' of another?"
asked George.

"Nonsense! But you can't call Charlotte Pain much of a girl, George. She
is as old as you, I know. She's six and twenty, if she's a day."

"Possibly," carelessly replied George Godolphin.

"Did she ride well to-day, George?" inquired his father.

"She always rides well, sir," replied George.

"I wish I had invited her to dinner!" said Lady Godolphin.

"I wish you had," assented Sir George.

Nothing more was said upon the subject; the conversation fell into other
channels. But, when the ladies had withdrawn, and Sir George was alone
with his sons, he renewed it.

"Mind, George, I was not in jest when speaking of Charlotte Pain. It is
getting time that you married."

"Need a man think of marriage on this side thirty, sir?"

"Some men need not think of it on this side forty or on this side fifty,
unless they choose to do so: your brother Thomas is one," returned Sir
George. "But they are those who know how to sow their wild oats without
it."

"I shall sow mine in good time," said George, with a gay, half-conscious
smile. "Thomas never had any to sow."

"I wish you would settle the time and keep it, then," was the marked
rejoinder. "It might be better for you."

"Settle the time for my marriage, do you mean, sir?"

"You know what I mean. But I suppose you do intend to marry some time,
George?"

"I dare say I shall. It is a thing that comes to most of us as a matter
of course; as measles or vaccination," spoke irreverent George. "You
mentioned Charlotte Pain, sir: I presume you have no urgent wish that my
choice should fall upon her?"

"If I had, would you comply with it?"

George raised his blue eyes to his father. "I have never thought of
Charlotte Pain as a wife."

"She is a fine girl, a wonderfully fine girl; and if, as is rumoured,
she has a fortune, you might go further and fare worse," remarked Sir
George. "If you don't like Charlotte Pain, find out some one else that
you would like. Only, take care that there's money with her."

"Money is desirable in itself. But it does not invariably bring
happiness, sir."

"I never heard that it brought unhappiness, Master George. I cannot have
you both marry portionless women. Thomas has chosen one who has nothing:
it will not do for you to follow his example. The world is before you;
choose wisely."

"If we choose portionless women, we are not portionless ourselves."

"We have a credit to keep up before the public, George. It stands high;
it deserves to stand high; I hope it always will do so. But I consider
it necessary that one of you should marry a fortune; I should have been
glad that both had done so. Take the hint, George; and never expect my
consent to your making an undesirable match, for it would not be given."

"But, if my inclination fixed itself upon one who has no money, what
then, sir?" asked bold George carelessly.

Sir George pushed from before him a dish of filberts, so hastily as to
scatter them on the table. It proved to his sons, who knew him well,
that the question had annoyed him.

"Your inclinations are as yet free, George: I say the world is before
you, and you may choose wisely. If you do not: if, after this warning,
you suffer your choice to rest where it is undesirable that it should
rest, you will do it in deliberate defiance of me. In that case I shall
disinherit you: partially, if not wholly."

Something appeared to be on the tip of George's tongue, but he checked
it, and there ensued a pause.

"Thomas is to be allowed to follow his choice," he presently said.

"I had not warned Thomas with regard to a choice; therefore he has been
guilty of no disobedience. It is his having chosen as he has, that
reminds me to caution you. Be careful, my boy."

"Well, sir, I have no intention of marrying yet, and I suppose you will
not disinherit me for keeping single," concluded George good-humouredly.
He rose to leave the room as he spoke, throwing a merry glance towards
Thomas as he did so, who had taken no part whatever in the conversation.

The twilight of the evening had passed, but the moon shone bright and
clear, rendering the night nearly as light as day. Janet Godolphin stood
on the lawn with Miss Hastings, when George stepped out and joined them.

"Moon-gazing, Janet!"

"Yes," she answered. "I am going on to the ash-trees."

George paused before he again spoke. "Why are you going thither?"

"Because," whispered Janet, glancing uneasily around, "they say the
Shadow is there again."

George himself had heard that it was: had heard it, as you know, from
Charlotte Pain. But he chose to make mockery of his sister's words.

"Some say the moon's made of green cheese," quoth he. "Who told you that
nonsense?"

"It has been told to me," mysteriously returned Janet. "Margery saw it
last night, for one."

"Margery sees double, sometimes. Do not go, Janet."

Janet's only answer was to put the hood of her cloak over her head, and
walk away. Bessy Godolphin ran up at this juncture.

"Is Janet going to the ash-trees? She'll turn into a ghost herself some
time, believing all the rubbish Margery chooses to dream. I shall go and
tell her so."

Bessy followed in the wake of her sister. George turned to Miss
Hastings.

"Have you a cloak also, Maria? Draw it round you, then, and let us go
after them."

He caught her to him with a fond gesture, and they hastened on, down
from the eminence where rose the Folly, to the lower ground nearer
Ashlydyat. The Dark Plain lay to the right, and as they struck into a
narrow, overhung walk, its gloom contrasted unpleasantly with the late
brightness. Maria Hastings drew nearer to her companion with an
involuntary shiver.

"Why did you come this dark way, George?"

"It is the most direct way. In the dark or in the light you are safe
with me. Did you notice Sir George's joke about Charlotte Pain?"

The question caused her heart to beat wildly. "Was it a joke?" she
breathed.

"Of course it was a joke. But he has been giving me a lecture
upon--upon----"

"Upon what?" she inquired, helping out his hesitation.

"Upon the expediency of sowing my wild oats and settling down into a
respectable man," laughed George. "I promised him it should be done some
time. I cannot afford it just yet, Maria," he added, his tone changing
to earnestness. "But I did not tell him that."

Meanwhile, Janet Godolphin had gained the ash-trees. She quietly glided
before them beneath their shade to reach the bench. It was placed back,
quite amidst them, in what might almost be called a recess formed by the
trees. Janet paused ere turning in, her sight thrown over the Dark
Plain.

"Heavens and earth! how you startled me. Is it you, Miss Godolphin?"

The exclamation came from Charlotte Pain, who was seated there. Miss
Godolphin was startled also; and her tone, as she spoke, betrayed
considerable vexation.

"_You_ here, Miss Pain! A solitary spot, is it not, for a young lady to
be sitting in alone at night?"

"I was watching for that strange appearance which you, in this
neighbourhood, call the Shadow," she explained. "I saw it last evening."

"Did you?" freezingly replied Janet Godolphin, who had an unconquerable
aversion to the supernatural sign being seen or spoken of by strangers.

"Well, pray, and where's the Shadow?" interrupted Bessy Godolphin,
coming up. "_I_ see nothing, and my eyes are as good as yours, Janet:
better, I hope, than Margery's."

"I do not see it to-night," said Charlotte Pain. "Here are more
footsteps! Who else is coming?"

"Did you ever know the Shadow come when it was watched for?" cried Janet
to Bessy, in a half-sad, half-resentful tone, as her brother and Maria
Hastings approached. "Watch for it, and it does not come. It never yet
struck upon the sight of any one, but it did so unexpectedly."

"As it did upon me last night," said Charlotte Pain. "It was a
strange-looking shadow: but, as to its being supernatural, the very
supposition is ridiculous. I beg your pardon, if I offend your
prejudices, Miss Godolphin."

"Child! why did you come?" cried Janet Godolphin to Maria.

"I had no idea you did not wish me to come."

"Wish! It is not that. But you are little more than a child, and might
be spared these sights."

There appeared to be no particular sight to spare any one. They stood in
a group, gazing eagerly. The Dark Plain was stretched out before them,
the bare patch of clear ground, the archway behind; all bright in the
moonlight. No shadow or shade was to be seen. Charlotte Pain moved to
the side of George Godolphin.

"You told me I was fanciful this morning, when I said the Dark Plain put
me in mind of a graveyard," she said to him in a half-whisper. "See it
now! Those low bushes scattered about look precisely like grave-mounds."

"But we know them to be bushes," returned George.

"That is not the argument. I say they _look_ like it. If you brought a
stranger here first by moonlight, and asked him what the Plain was, he
would say a graveyard."

"Thus it has ever been!" murmured Janet Godolphin to herself. "At the
first coming of the Shadow, it will be here capriciously; visible one
night, invisible the next: betokening that the evil has not yet arrived,
that it is only hovering! You are sure you saw it, Miss Pain?"

"I am quite sure that I saw a shadow, bearing a strange and distinct
form, there, in front of the archway. But I am equally sure it is to be
accounted for by natural causes. But that my eyes tell me there is no
building, or sign of building above the Dark Plain, I should say it was
cast from thence. Some fairies, possibly, may be holding up a sheet
there," she carelessly added, "playing at magic lantern in the
moonlight."

"Standing in the air," sarcastically returned Miss Godolphin.
"Archimedes offered to move the world with his lever, if the world would
only find him a place, apart from itself, to stand on."

"Are you convinced, Janet?" asked George.

"Of what?"

He pointed over the Plain. "That there is nothing uncanny to be seen
to-night. I'll send Margery here when I return."

"I am convinced of one thing--that it is getting uncommonly damp," said
practical Bessy. "I never stood under these ash-trees in an evening yet,
let the atmosphere be ever so cold and clear, but a dampness might be
felt. I wonder if it is the nature of ash-trees to exhale it? Maria, the
Rector would not thank us for bringing you here."

"Is Miss Hastings so susceptible to cold?" asked Charlotte Pain.

"Not more so than other people are," was Maria's answer.

"It is her child-like, delicate appearance, I suppose, that makes us
fancy it," said Bessy Godolphin. "Come, let us depart. If Lady Godolphin
could see us here, she would go crazy: she says, you know, that damp
brings fever."

They made a simultaneous movement. Their road lay to the right;
Charlotte Pain's to the left. "I envy you four," she said, after wishing
them good night. "You are a formidable body, numerous enough to do
battle with any assailants you may meet in your way, fairies, or
shadows, or fever, or what not. I must encounter them alone."

"Scarcely," replied George Godolphin, as he drew her arm within his, and
turned with her in the direction of Ashlydyat.

Arrived at Lady Godolphin's Folly, the Miss Godolphins passed indoors;
Maria Hastings lingered a moment behind them. She leaned against a white
pillar of the terrace, looking forth on the lovely night. Not altogether
was that peaceful scene in accordance with her heart, for, in that,
warred passionate jealousy. Who was Charlotte Pain, she asked herself,
that she should come between them with her beauty; with her----

Some one was hastening towards her; crossing the green lawn, springing
up the steps of the terrace: and the jealous feeling died away into
love.

"Were you waiting for me?" whispered George Godolphin. "We met Verrall,
so I resigned mademoiselle to his charge. Maria, how your heart is
beating!"

"I was startled when you ran up so quickly; I did not think it could be
you," was the evasive answer. "Let me go, please."

"My darling, don't be angry with me: I could not well help myself. You
know with whom I would rather have been."

He spoke in the softest whisper; he gazed tenderly into her face, so
fair and gentle in the moonlight; he clasped her to him with an
impassioned gesture. And Maria, as she yielded to his tenderness in her
pure love, and felt his stolen kisses on her lips, forgot the jealous
trouble that was being wrought by Charlotte Pain.




CHAPTER IV.

ALL SOULS' RECTORY.


At the eastern end of Prior's Ash was situated the Church and Rectory of
All Souls--a valuable living, the Reverend Isaac Hastings its incumbent.
The house, enclosed from the high-road by a lofty hedge, was built, like
the church, of greystone. It was a commodious residence, but its rooms,
excepting one, were small. This one had been added to the house of late
years: a long, though somewhat narrow room, its three windows looking on
to the flowered lawn. A very pleasant room to sit in on a summer's day;
when the grass was green, and the flowers, with their brightness and
perfume, gladdened the senses, and the birds were singing, and the bees
and butterflies sporting.

Less pleasant to-day. For the skies wore a grey hue; the wind sighed
round the house with an ominous sound, telling of the coming winter; and
the mossy lawn and the paths were dreary with the yellow leaves,
decaying as they lay. Mrs. Hastings, a ladylike woman of middle height
and fair complexion, stood at one of these windows, watching the bending
of the trees as the wind shook them; watching the falling leaves. She
was remarkably susceptible to surrounding influences; seasons and
weather held much power over her: but that she was a clergyman's wife,
and, as such, obliged to take a very practical part in the duties of
life, she might have subsided into a valetudinarian.

A stronger gust sent the leaves rustling up the path, and Mrs. Hastings
slightly shivered.

"How I dislike this time of year," she exclaimed. "I wish there were no
autumn. I dislike to see the dead leaves."

"I like the autumn: although it heralds in the winter."

The reply came from Mr. Hastings, who was pacing the carpet, thinking
over his next day's sermon: for it was Saturday morning. Nature had not
intended Mr. Hastings for a parson, and his sermons were the bane of his
life. An excellent man; a most efficient pastor of a parish; a
gentleman; a scholar, abounding in good practical sense; but _not_ a
preacher. Sometimes he wrote his sermons, sometimes he tried the
extempore plan; but, let him do as he would, there was always a
conviction of failure, as to his sermons winning their way to his
hearers' hearts. He was under middle height, with keen aquiline
features, his dark hair already sprinkled with grey.

"I am glad the wind has changed," remarked the Rector. "We shall say
good-bye to the fever. While that warm weather lasted, I always had my
fears of its breaking out again. It was only coquetting with us. I
wonder----"

Mr. Hastings stopped, as if lapsing into thought. Mrs. Hastings inquired
what his "wonder" might be.

"I was thinking of Sir George Godolphin," he continued. "One thought
leads to another and another, until we should find them a strange train,
if we traced them back to their origin. Beginning with dead leaves, and
ending with--metaphysics."

"What are you talking of, Isaac?" his wife asked in surprise.

A half-smile crossed the thin delicate lips of Mr. Hastings. "You spoke
of the dead leaves: that led to the thought of the fever; the fever to
the bad drainage; the bad drainage to the declaration of Sir George
Godolphin that, if he lived until next year, it should be remedied, even
though he had to meet the expense himself. Then the train went on to
speculate upon whether Sir George would live; and next upon whether this
change of weather may not cause my lady to relinquish her journey; and
lastly, to Maria. Cold Scotland, if we are to have a season of bleak
winds, cannot be beneficial to Sir George."

"Lady Godolphin has set her mind upon going. She is not likely to
relinquish it."

"Mark you, Caroline," said Mr. Hastings, halting in his promenade, and
standing opposite his wife; "it is her dread of the fever that is
sending her to Scotland. But for that, she would not go, now that it is
so late in the year. And for Maria's sake I wish she would not. I do not
now wish Maria to go to Scotland."

"Why?" asked Mrs. Hastings.

Mr. Hastings knitted his brow. "It is an objection more easily felt than
explained."

"When the invitation was given in the summer, you were pleased that she
should accept it."

"Yes; I acknowledge it: and, had they gone then, I should have felt no
repugnance to the visit. But I do feel a repugnance to it now, so far as
Maria is concerned; an unaccountable repugnance. If you ask me to
explain it, or to tell you what my reason is, I can only answer that I
am unable to do so. It is this want of reason, good or bad, which has
prevented my entirely withdrawing the consent I gave. I essayed to do
so, when Lady Godolphin was here on Thursday; but she pressed me
closely, and, having no sound or plausible argument to bring forward
against it, my opposition broke down."

Mrs. Hastings wondered. Never was there a man less given to whims and
fancies than the Reverend Isaac Hastings. His actions and thoughts were
based on the sound principle of plain matter-of-fact sense: he was
practical in all things; there was not a grain of ideality in his
composition.

At that moment a visitor's knock was heard. Mrs. Hastings glanced across
the hall, and saw her second daughter enter. She wore her grey cashmere
cloak, soft and fine in texture, delicate in hue; a pretty morning
dress, and a straw bonnet trimmed with white. A healthy colour shone on
her delicate face, and her eyes were sparkling with inward happiness.
Very attractive, very ladylike, was Maria Hastings.

"I was obliged to come this morning, mamma," she said, when greetings
had passed. "Some of my things are still here which I wish to take, and
I must collect them and send them to the Folly. We start early on Monday
morning; everything must be packed to-day."

"One would suppose you were off for a year, Maria," exclaimed Mr.
Hastings, "to hear you talk of 'collecting your things.' How many
trunk-loads have you already at the Folly?"

"Only two, papa," she replied, laughing, and wondering why Mr. Hastings
should speak so sternly. "They are chiefly trifles that I have come for;
books, and other things: not clothes."

"Your papa thought it likely that Lady Godolphin would not now go, as
the fine weather seems to be leaving us," said Mrs. Hastings.

"Oh yes, she will," replied Maria. "Her mind is fully made up. Did you
not know that the orders had already been sent into Berwickshire? And
some of the servants went on this morning?"

"Great ladies change their minds sometimes," remarked Mr. Hastings in a
cynical tone.

Maria shook her head. She had untied her bonnet-strings, and was
unfastening her mantle. "Sir George, who has risen to breakfast since
Thursday, asked Lady Godolphin this morning whether it would not be late
for Scotland, and she resented the remark. What do you think she said,
mamma? That if there was nothing else to take her to Scotland, this
absurd rumour, of the Shadow's having come again, would drive her
thither."

"What's that, Maria?" demanded the clergyman in a sharp, displeased
accent.

"A rumour has arisen, papa, that the Shadow is appearing at Ashlydyat.
It was seen on Wednesday night. On Thursday night, some of us went to
the ash-trees----"

"_You_ went?" interrupted the Rector.

"Yes, papa," she answered, her voice growing timid, for he spoke in a
tone of great displeasure. "I, and Miss Godolphin, and Bessy. We were
not alone: George Godolphin was with us."

"And what did you see?" eagerly interposed Mrs. Hastings, who possessed
more of the organ of marvel in her composition than her husband.

"Mamma, we saw nothing. Only the Dark Plain lying quietly under the
moonlight. There appeared to be nothing to see; nothing unusual."

"But that I hear you say this with my own ears, I should not have
believed you capable of giving utterance to folly so intense," sternly
exclaimed Mr. Hastings to his daughter. "Are you the child of Christian
parents? have you received an enlightened education?"

Maria's eyelids fell under the reproof, and the soft colour in her
cheeks deepened.

"That a daughter of mine should confess to running after a 'shadow'!" he
continued, really with more asperity than the case seemed to need. But
the Rector of All Souls' was one who would have deemed it little less
heresy to doubt his Bible, than to countenance a tale of superstition.
He repudiated such with the greatest contempt: he never, even though
proof positive had been brought before his eyes, could accord to it an
iota of credence. "An absurd tale of a 'shadow,' worthy only to be told
to those who, in their blind credulity, formerly burnt poor creatures as
witches; worthy only to amuse the ears of ignorant urchins, whom we put
into our fields to frighten away the crows! And _my daughter_ has lent
herself to it! Can this be the result of your training, madam?"--turning
angrily to his wife. "Or of mine?"

"I did not run after it from my own curiosity; I went because the rest
went," answered poor Maria in her confusion, all too conscious that the
stolen moonlight walk with Mr. George Godolphin had been a far more
powerful motive to the expedition than the "Shadow." "Miss Pain saw it
on Wednesday night; Margery saw it----"

"Will you cease?" broke forth the Rector. "'Saw it!' If they said they
saw it they must have been labouring under a delusion; or else were
telling a deliberate untruth. And you do not know better than to repeat
such ignorance! What would Sir George think of you?"

"I should not mention it in his presence, papa. Or in Lady Godolphin's."

"Neither shall you in mine. It is not possible"--Mr. Hastings stood
before her and fixed his eyes sternly upon hers--"that you can believe
in it?"

"I think not, papa," she answered in her strict truth. To truth, at any
rate, she had been trained, whether by father or by mother; and she
would not violate it even to avoid displeasure. "I think that my feeling
upon the point is curiosity; not belief."

"Then that curiosity implies belief," sternly replied the Rector. "If a
man came to me and said, 'There's an elephant out there, in the garden,'
and I went forth to see, would not that prove my belief in the
assertion?"

Maria was no logician; or she had answered, "No, you might go to prove
the error of the assertion." "Indeed, papa, if I know anything of
myself, I am not a believer in it," she repeated, her cheeks growing
hotter and hotter. "If I were once to see the Shadow, why then----"

"Be silent!" he cried, not allowing her to continue. "I shall think next
I am talking to that silly dreamer, Janet Godolphin. Is it she who has
imbued you with this tone of mind?"

Maria shook her head. There was an undercurrent of consciousness, lying
deep in her heart, that if a "tone" upon the point had been insensibly
acquired by her, it was caught from one far more precious to her heart,
far more essential to her very existence, than was Janet Godolphin. That
last Thursday night, in running with George Godolphin after this tale of
the Shadow, his arm cast lovingly round her, she had acquired the
impression, from a few words he let fall, that he must put faith in it.
She was content that his creed should be hers in all things: had she
wished to differ from him, it would have been beyond her power to do so.
Mr. Hastings appeared to wait for an answer.

"Janet Godolphin does not intrude her superstitious fancies upon the
world, papa. Were she to seek to convert me to them, I should not listen
to her."

"Dismiss the subject altogether from your thoughts, Maria," commanded
the Rector. "If men and women would perform efficiently their allotted
part in life, there is enough of hard substance to occupy their minds
and their hours, without losing either the one or the other in
'shadows.' Take you note of that."

"Yes, papa," she dutifully answered, scarcely knowing whether she had
deserved the lecture or not, but glad that it was at an end. "Mamma,
where is Grace?"

"In the study. You can go to her. There's David!" exclaimed Mrs.
Hastings, as Maria left the room.

A short, thick-set man had appeared in the garden, giving rise to the
concluding remark of Mrs. Hastings. If you have not forgotten the first
chapter, you may remember that Bessy Godolphin spoke of a man who had
expressed his pleasure at seeing her father out again. She called him
"Old Jekyl." Old Jekyl lived in a cottage on the outskirts of Prior's
Ash. He had been in his days a working gardener, but rheumatism and age
had put him beyond work now. There was a good bit of garden-ground to
his cottage, and it was well cultivated. Vegetables and fruit grew in
it; and a small board was fastened in front of the laburnum-tree at the
gate, with the intimation "Cut flowers sold here." There were also
bee-hives. Old Jekyl (Prior's Ash never dignified him by any other
title) had no wife: she was dead: but his two sons lived with him, and
they followed the occupation that had been his. I could not tell you how
many gardens in Prior's Ash and its environs those two men kept in
order. Many a family, not going to the expense of keeping a regular
gardener, some, perhaps, not able to go to it, entrusted the care of
their garden to the Jekyls, paying them a stipulated sum yearly. The
plan answered. The gardens were kept in order, and the Jekyls earned a
good living; both masters and men were contented.

They had been named Jonathan and David: and were as opposite as men and
brothers could well be, both in nature and appearance. Each was worthy
in his way. Jonathan stood six feet three if he stood an inch, and was
sufficiently slender for a lamp-post: rumour went that he had
occasionally been taken for one. An easy-going, obliging, talkative,
mild-tempered man, was Jonathan, his opinion agreeing with every one's.
Mrs. Hastings was wont to declare that if she were to say to him, "You
know, Jonathan, the sun never shone," his answer would be, "Well, ma'am,
I don't know as ever it did, over bright like." David had the build of a
Dutchman, and was taciturn upon most subjects. In manner he was somewhat
surly, and would hold his own opinion, especially if it touched upon his
occupation, against the world.

Amongst others who employed them in this way, was the Rector of All
Souls'. They were in the habit of coming and going to that or any other
garden, as they pleased, at whatever day or time suited their
convenience; sometimes one brother, sometimes the other, sometimes one
of the two boys they employed, as they might arrange between themselves.
Any garden entrusted to their care they were sure to keep in order;
therefore their time and manner of doing it was not interfered with.
Mrs. Hastings suddenly saw David in the garden. "I will get him to sweep
those ugly dead leaves from the paths," she exclaimed, throwing up the
window. "David!"

David heard the call, turned and looked. Finding he was wanted, he
advanced in a leisurely, independent sort of manner, giving his
attention to the beds as he passed them, and stopping to pluck off any
dead flower that offended his eye. He gave a nod as he reached Mrs.
Hastings, his features not relaxing in the least. The nod was a mark of
respect, and _meant_ as such; the only demonstration of respect commonly
shown by David. His face was not ugly, though too flat and broad; his
complexion was fair, and his eyes were blue.

"David, see how the leaves have fallen; how they lie upon the ground!"

David gave a half-glance round, by way of answer, but he did not speak.
He knew the leaves were there without looking.

"You must clear them away," continued Mrs. Hastings.

"No," responded David to this. "'Twon't be of no use."

"But, David, you know how very much I dislike to see these withered
leaves," rejoined Mrs. Hastings in a voice more of pleading than of
command. Command answered little with David.

"Can't help seeing 'em," persisted David. "Leaves will wither; and will
fall: it's their natur' to do it. If every one of them lying there now
was raked up and swept away, there'd be as many down again to-morrow
morning. I can't neglect my beds to fad with the leaves--and bring no
good to pass, after all."

"David, I do not think any one ever was so self-willed as you!" said
Mrs. Hastings, laughing in spite of her vexation.

"I know my business," was David's answer. "If I gave in at my different
places to all the missises' whims, how should I get my work done? The
masters would be blowing me up, thinking it was idleness. Look at
Jonathan! he lets himself be swayed any way; and a nice time he gets of
it, among 'em. His day's work's never done."

"You would not suffer the leaves to lie there until the end of the
season!" exclaimed Mrs. Hastings. "They would be up to our ankles as we
walked."

"May be they would," composedly returned David. "I have cleared 'em off
about six times this fall, and I shall clear 'em again, but not as long
as this wind lasts."

"Is it going to last, David?" inquired the Rector, appearing at his
wife's side, and laughing inwardly at her diplomatic failure.

David nodded his usual salutation as he answered. He would sometimes
relax so far as to say "Sir" to Mr. Hastings, an honour paid exclusively
to his pastoral capacity. "No, it won't last, sir. We shall have the
warm weather back again."

"You think so!" exclaimed the Rector in an accent of disappointment.
Experience had taught him that David, in regard to the weather, was an
oracle.

"I am sure so," answered David. "The b'rometer's going fast on to heat,
too."

"Is it?" said Mr. Hastings. "You have often told me you put no faith in
the barometer."

"No more I don't: unless other signs answer to it," said David. "The
very best b'rometer going, is old father's rheumatiz. There was a sharp
frost last night, sir."

"I know it," replied Mr. Hastings. "A few nights of that and the fever
will be driven away."

"We shan't get a few nights of it," said David. "And the fever has
broken out again."

"What!" exclaimed Mr. Hastings. "The fever broken out again?"

"Yes," said David.

The news fell upon the clergyman's heart as a knell. He had fully
believed the danger to have passed away, though not yet the sickness.
"Are you sure it has broken out again, David?" he asked, after a pause.

"I ain't no surer than I was told, sir," returned phlegmatic David. "I
met Cox just now, and he said, as he passed, that fever had shown itself
in a fresh place."

"Do you know where?" inquired Mr. Hastings.

"He said, I b'lieve, but I didn't catch it. If I stopped to listen to
the talk of fevers, and such-like, where would my work be?"

Taking his hat, one of the very clerical shape, with a broad brim, the
Rector left his house. He was scarcely without the gates when he saw Mr.
Snow, who was the most popular doctor in Prior's Ash, coming along
quickly in his gig. Mr. Hastings threw out his hand, and the groom
pulled up.

"Is it true?--this fresh rumour of the fever?"

"Too true, I fear," replied Mr. Snow. "I am on my way thither now; just
summoned."

"Who is attacked?"

"Sarah Anne Grame."

The name appeared to startle the Rector. "Sarah Anne Grame!" he
repeated. "She will never battle through it!" The doctor raised his
eyebrows, as if he thought it doubtful himself, and signed to his groom
to hasten on.

"Tell Lady Sarah I will call upon her in the course of the day," called
out Mr. Hastings, as the gig sped on its way. "I must ask Maria if she
has heard news of this," he continued, in soliloquy, as he turned within
the Rectory gate.

Maria Hastings had found her way to the study. To dignify a room by the
appellation of "study" in a clergyman's house, would at once imply that
it must be the private sanctum of its master, consecrated to his sermons
and his other clerical studies. Not so, however, in the Rectory of All
Souls. The study there was chiefly consecrated to litter, and the master
had less to do with it, personally, than with almost any other room in
the house. There, the children, boys and girls, played, or learned
lessons, or practised; there, Mrs. Hastings would sit to sew when she
had any work in hand too plebeian for the eyes of polite visitors.

Grace, the eldest of the family, was twenty years of age, one year older
than Maria. She bore a great resemblance to her father; and, like him,
was more practical than imaginative. She was very useful, in the house,
and took much care off Mrs. Hastings's hands. It happened that all the
children, five of them besides Maria, were this morning at home. It was
holiday that day with the boys. Isaac was next to Maria, but nearly
three years younger; one had died between them; Reginald was next; Harry
last; and then came a little girl, Rose. They ought to have been
preparing their lessons; were supposed to be doing so by Mr. and Mrs.
Hastings: in point of fact, they were gathering round Grace, who was
seated on a low stool solving some amusing puzzles from a new book. They
started up when Maria entered, and went dancing round her.

Maria danced too; she kissed them all; she sang aloud in her joyousness
of heart. What was it that made that heart so glad, her life as a very
Eden? The ever-constant presence there of George Godolphin.

"Have you come home to stay, Maria?"

"I have come home to _go_," she answered, with a laugh. "We start for
Scotland on Monday, and I want to hunt up oceans of things."

"It is fine to be you, Maria," exclaimed Grace, with a sensation very
like envy. "You have all the pleasure, and I have to stop at home and do
all the work. It is not fair."

"Gracie dear, it will be your turn next. I did not _ask_ Lady Godolphin
to invite me, instead of you. I never thought of her inviting me, being
the younger of the two."

"But she did invite you," grumbled Grace.

"I say, Maria, you are not to go to Scotland," struck in Isaac.

"Who says so?" cried Maria, her heart standing still, as she halted in
one corner of the room with at least half a dozen arms round her.

"Mamma said yesterday she thought you were not: that papa would not have
it."

"Is that all?" and Maria's pulses coursed on again. "I am to go: I have
just been with papa and mamma. They know that I have come to get my
things for the journey."

"Maria, who goes?"

"Sir George and my lady, and I and Charlotte Pain."

"Maria, I want to know why Charlotte Pain goes?" cried Grace.

Maria laughed. "You are like Bessy Godolphin, Grace. She asked the same
question, and my lady answered, 'Because she chose to invite her.' I can
only repeat to you the same reason."

"Does George Godolphin go?"

"No," replied Maria.

"Oh, doesn't he, though!" exclaimed Reginald. "Tell that to the marines,
mademoiselle."

"He does not go with us," said Maria. "Regy, you know you will get into
hot water if you use those sea phrases."

"Sea phrases! that is just like a girl," retorted Reginald. "What will
you lay me that George Godolphin is not in Scotland within a week after
you are all there?"

"I will not lay anything," said Maria, who in her inmost heart hoped and
believed that George _would_ be there.

"Catch him stopping away if Charlotte Pain goes?" went on Reginald.
"Yesterday I was at the pastry-cook's, having a tuck-out with that
shilling old Crosse gave me, and Mr. George and Miss Charlotte came in.
I heard a little."

"What did you hear?" breathed Maria. She could not help the question:
any more than she could help the wild beating of her heart at the boy's
words.

"I did not catch it all," said Reginald. "It was about Scotland, though,
and what they should do when they were there. Mrs. Verrall's carriage
came up then, and he put her into it. An out-and-out flirt is George
Godolphin!"

Grace Hastings threw her keen dark eyes upon Maria. "Do not let him
flirt with _you_," she said in a marked tone. "You like him; I do not. I
never thought George Godolphin worth his salt."

"That's just Grace!" exclaimed Isaac. "Taking her likes and dislikes!
and for no cause, or reason, but her own crotchets and prejudices. He is
the nicest fellow going, is George Godolphin. Charlotte Pain's is a new
face and a beautiful one: let him admire it."

"He admires rather too many," nodded Grace.

"As long as he does not admire yours, you have no right to grumble,"
rejoined Isaac provokingly: and Grace flung a bundle of work at him, for
the laugh turned against her.

"Rose, you naughty child, you have my crayons there!" exclaimed Maria,
happening to cast her eyes upon the table, where Rose was seated too
quietly to be at anything but mischief.

"Only one or two of your sketching pencils, Maria," said Miss Rose. "I
shan't hurt them. I am making a villa with two turrets and some cows."

"I say, Maria, is Charlotte Pain going to take that thoroughbred hunter
of hers?" interposed Reginald.

"Of course," scoffed Isaac: "saddled and bridled. She'll have him with
her in the railway carriage; put him in the corner seat opposite Sir
George. Regy's brains may do for sea--if he ever gets there; but they
are not sharp enough for land."

"They are as sharp as yours, at any rate," flashed Reginald. "Why should
she not take him?"

"Be quiet, you boys!" said Grace.

She was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hastings. He did not open
the door at the most opportune moment. Maria, Isaac, and Harry were
executing a dance that probably had no name in the dancing calendar;
Reginald was standing on his head; Rose had just upset the contents of
the table, by inadvertently drawing off its old cloth cover, and Grace
was scolding her in a loud tone.

"What do you call this?" demanded Mr. Hastings, when he had leisurely
surveyed the scene. "Studying?"

They subsided into quietness and their places; Reginald with his face
red and his hair wild, Maria with a pretty blush, Isaac with a smothered
laugh. Mr. Hastings addressed his second daughter.

"Have you heard anything about this fresh outbreak of fever?"

"No, papa," was Maria's reply. "Has it broken out again?"

"I hear that it has attacked Sarah Anne Grame."

"Oh, papa!" exclaimed Grace, clasping her hands in sorrowful
consternation. "Will she ever live through it?"

Just the same doubt, you see, that had occurred to the Rector.




CHAPTER V.

THOMAS GODOLPHIN'S LOVE.


For nearly a mile beyond All Souls' Rectory, as you went out of Prior's
Ash, there were scattered houses and cottages. In one of them lived Lady
Sarah Grame. We receive our ideas from association; and, in speaking of
the residence of Lady Sarah Grame, or Lady Sarah Anyone, imagination
might conjure up some fine old mansion with all its appurtenances,
grounds, servants, carriages and grandeur: or, at the very least, a
"villa with two turrets and some cows," as Rose Hastings expressed it.

Far more like a humble cottage than a mansion was the abode of Lady
Sarah Grame. It was a small, pretty, detached white house, containing
eight or nine rooms in all; and, they, not very large ones. A plot of
ground before it was crowded with flowers: far too crowded for good
taste, as David Jekyl would point out to Lady Sarah. But Lady Sarah
loved flowers, and would not part with one of them.

The daughter of one soldier, and the wife of another, Lady Sarah had
scrambled through life amidst bustle, perplexity, and poverty. Sometimes
quartered in barracks, sometimes following the army abroad; out of one
place into another; never settled anywhere for long together. It was an
existence not to be envied; although it is the lot of many. She was Mrs.
Grame then, and her husband, the captain, was not a very good husband to
her. He was rather too fond of amusing himself, and threw all care upon
her shoulders. She passed her days nursing her sickly children, and
endeavouring to make one sovereign go as far as two. One morning, to her
unspeakable embarrassment, she found herself converted from plain,
private Mrs. Grame into the Lady Sarah. Her father boasted a peer in a
very remote relative, and came unexpectedly into the title.

Had he come into money with it, it would have been more welcome; but, of
that, there was only a small supply. It was a very poor Scotch peerage,
with limited estates; and, they, encumbered. Lady Sarah wished she could
drop the honour which had fallen to her share, unless she could live a
little more in accordance with it. She had much sorrow. She had lost one
child after another, until she had only two left, Sarah Anne and Ethel.
Then she lost her husband; and, next, her father. Chance drove her to
Prior's Ash, which was near her husband's native place; and she settled
there, upon her limited income. All she possessed was her pension as a
captain's widow, and the interest of the sum her father had been enabled
to leave her; the whole not exceeding five hundred a year. She took the
white cottage, then just built, and dignified it with the name of "Grame
House:" and the mansions in the neighbourhood of Prior's Ash were
content not to laugh, but to pay respect to her as an earl's daughter.

Lady Sarah was a partial woman. She had only these two daughters, and
her love for them was as different as light is from darkness. Sarah Anne
she loved with an inordinate affection, almost amounting to passion; for
Ethel, she did not care. What could be the reason of this? What is the
reason why parents (many of them may be found) will love some of their
children, and dislike others? They cannot tell you, any more than Lady
Sarah could have told. Ask them, and they will be unable to give you an
answer. It does not lie in the children: it often happens that those
obtaining the least love will be the most worthy of it. Such was the
case here. Sarah Anne Grame was a pale, sickly, fretful girl; full of
whims, full of complaints, giving trouble to every one about her. Ethel,
with her sweet countenance and her merry heart, made the sunshine of the
home. She bore with her sister's exacting moods, bore with her mother's
want of love. _She_ loved them both, and waited on them, and carolled
forth her snatches of song as she moved about the house, and was as
happy as the day was long. The servants--they kept only two--would tell
you that Miss Grame was cross and selfish; but that Miss Ethel was worth
her weight in gold. The gold was soon to be appropriated; transplanted
to a home where it would be appreciated and cherished: for Ethel was the
affianced wife of Thomas Godolphin.

On the morning already mentioned, when you heard it said that fever had
broken out again, Sarah Anne Grame awoke, ill. In her fretful, impatient
way, she called to Ethel, who slept in an adjoining room. Ethel was
asleep: but she was accustomed to be roused at unseasonable hours by
Sarah Anne, and she threw on her dressing-gown and hastened to her.

"I want some tea," began Sarah Anne. "I am as ill and thirsty as I can
be."

Sarah Anne was really of a sickly constitution, and to hear her complain
of being ill and thirsty was nothing unusual. Ethel, in her loving
nature, her sweet patience, received the information with as much
concern as though she had never heard it before. She bent over Sarah
Anne, inquiring tenderly where she felt pain.

"I tell you that I am ill and thirsty, and that's enough," peevishly
answered Sarah Anne. "Go and get me some tea."

"As soon as I possibly can," said Ethel soothingly. "There is no fire at
present. The maids are not up. I do not think it can be later than six,
by the look of the morning."

"Very well!" sobbed Sarah Anne--sobs of temper, not of pain. "You can't
call the maids, I suppose! and you can't put yourself the least out of
the way to alleviate my suffering! You want to go to bed again and sleep
till eight o'clock. When I am dead, you'll wish you had been more like a
sister to me. You possess rude health yourself, and you can feel no
compassion for any one who does not."

An assertion unjust and untrue: as was many another, made by Sarah Anne
Grame. Ethel did not possess "rude health," though she was not, like her
sister, always ailing; and she felt far more compassion than Sarah Anne
deserved.

"I will see what I can do," she gently said. "You shall soon have some
tea."

Passing into her own room, Ethel hastily dressed herself. When Sarah
Anne was in one of her exacting moods, there could be no more sleep or
rest for Ethel. "I wonder," she thought to herself, "whether I could not
light a fire, without calling the servants? They had so hard a day's
work yesterday, for mamma kept them both cleaning from morning till
night. Yes: if I can only find some wood, I'll try to light one."

She went down to the kitchen, hunted up what was required, laid the
fire, and lighted it. It did not burn up well. She thought the wood must
be damp, and found the bellows. She was on her knees, blowing away at
the wood, and sending the blaze up into the coal, when some one came
into the kitchen.

"Miss Ethel!"

It was one of the servants: Elizabeth. She had heard movement in the
house, and had risen. Ethel explained that her sister felt ill, and tea
was wanted.

"Why did you not call us, Miss Ethel?"

"You went to rest late, Elizabeth. See how I have made the fire burn!"

"It is not ladies' work, miss."

"I certainly think ladies should put on gloves when they attempt it,"
merrily laughed Ethel. "Look at my black hands."

The tea ready, Ethel carried a cup of it to her sister, with some dry
toast that they had made. Sarah Anne drank the tea, but turned with a
shiver from the toast. She seemed to be shivering much.

"Who was so stupid as to make that? You might know I should not eat it.
I am too ill."

Ethel began to think that she did look unusually ill. Her face was
flushed, shivering though she was, her lips were dry, her heavy eyes
were unnaturally bright. She gently laid her hands, washed now, upon her
sister's brow. It felt burning, and Sarah Anne screamed.

"Do keep your hands away! My head is splitting with pain."

Involuntarily Ethel thought of the fever; the danger from which they had
been reckoning had passed away. It was a low sort of typhus which had
prevailed; not very extensively, and chiefly amidst the poor: the great
fear had been, lest it should turn to a more malignant type. About half
a dozen deaths had taken place altogether.

"Would you like me to bathe your forehead with water, Sarah Anne?" asked
Ethel kindly. "Or to get you some eau-de-Cologne?"

"I should like you to wait until things are asked for, and not to worry
me," retorted Sarah Anne.

Ethel sighed. Not for the temper: Sarah Anne was always fractious in
illness: but for the suffering she thought she saw, and the half doubt,
half dread, which had arisen within her. "I think I had better call
mamma," she deliberated to herself. "Though, if she sees nothing
unusually the matter with Sarah Anne, she will only be angry with me."

Proceeding to her mother's chamber, Ethel knocked softly. Lady Sarah
slept still, but the entrance aroused her.

"Mamma, I do not like to disturb you; I was unwilling to do so: but
Sarah Anne is ill."

"Ill again! And only last week she was in bed three days! Poor dear
sufferer! Is it her chest again?"

"Mamma, she seems _unusually_ ill. Otherwise I should not have disturbed
you. I feared--I thought--you will be angry with me if I say, perhaps?"

"Say what? Don't stand like a statue, Ethel."

Ethel dropped her voice. "Dear mamma, suppose it should be the fever?"

For one startling moment, Lady Sarah felt as if a dagger had pierced
her: the next, she turned upon Ethel. Fever for Sarah Anne! how dared
she prophesy it? A low, common fever, confined to the poor of the town,
and which had subsided; or, all but subsided! Was it likely to return
again and come up here to attack her darling child? What did Ethel mean
by it?

Ethel, the tears in her eyes, said she hoped it would prove to be only
an ordinary headache; it was her love for Sarah Anne which awoke her
fears. Lady Sarah proceeded to the sick-room; and Ethel followed. Her
ladyship was not in the habit of observing caution, and spoke freely of
the "fever" before Sarah Anne; apparently for the purpose of casting
blame at Ethel.

Sarah Anne did not imbibe the fear; she ridiculed Ethel as her mother
had done. For some hours Lady Sarah did not admit it either. She would
have summoned medical advice at first, but that Sarah Anne, in her
peevishness, protested she would not have a doctor. Later on she grew
worse, and Mr. Snow was sent for. You saw him in his gig hastening to
the house.

Lady Sarah came forward to receive him; Ethel, full of anxiety, near
her. She was a thin woman, with a shrivelled face and a sharp red nose,
her grey hair banded plainly under a close white net cap.

She grasped Mr. Snow's arm. "You must save my child!"

"Higher aid permitting me," the surgeon answered. "Why do you assume it
to be fever? For the last six weeks I have been summoned by timid
parents to a score of 'fever' cases; and when I have arrived in hot
haste, they have turned out to be no fever at all."

"_This_ is the fever," replied Lady Sarah. "Had I been more willing to
admit that it was, you would have been sent for hours ago. It was
Ethel's fault. She suggested at daylight that it might be fever; and it
made my darling girl so angry that she forbid my sending for advice. But
she is worse now. Come and see her."

Mr. Snow laid his hand upon Ethel's head with a fond gesture, ere he
turned to Lady Sarah. All Prior's Ash loved Ethel Grame.

Tossing upon her uneasy bed, her face flushed, her hair floating
untidily about it, lay Sarah Anne, shivering still. The doctor gave one
glance at her: it was quite enough to satisfy him that Lady Sarah was
not mistaken.

"Is it the fever?" impatiently asked Sarah Anne, unclosing her hot
eyelids.

"If it is, we must drive it away again," said the doctor cheerily.

"Why should the fever have come to _me_?" she rejoined, her tone
rebellious.

"Why was I thrown from my horse last year, and broke my arm?" returned
Mr. Snow. "These things come to all of us."

"To break an arm is nothing--people always recover from that," irritably
answered Sarah Anne.

"And you will recover from the fever, if you will be quiet and
reasonable."

"I am so hot! My head is so heavy!"

Mr. Snow, who had called for water and a glass, was mixing a white
powder which he had produced from his pocket. She took it without
opposition, and then he lessened the weight of bed-clothes, and
afterwards turned his attention to the chamber. It was close and hot;
the sun, which had just burst forth brightly from the grey skies, shone
full upon it.

"You have that chimney stuffed up!" he exclaimed.

"Sarah Anne will not allow it to be open," said Lady Sarah. "She is
sensitive to cold, dear child, and feels the slightest draught."

Mr. Snow walked to the chimney, turned up his coat cuff and wristband,
and pulled down a bag filled with shavings. Soot came with it, and
covered his hand; but he did not mind that. He was as little given to
ceremony as Lady Sarah to caution, and he went leisurely up to the
wash-hand-stand to remove it.

"Now, if I catch that bag, or any other bag up there again, obstructing
the air, I shall attack the bricks next time, and make a good big hole
that the sky can be seen through. Of that I give you notice, my lady."

He next pulled down the window at the top, behind the blind; but the
room, at its best, did not find favour with him. "It is not airy; it is
not cool," he said. "Is there not a better ventilated room in the house?
If so, she should be moved into it."

"My room is cool," interposed Ethel eagerly. "The sun never shines into
it, Mr. Snow."

It would appear that Ethel's thus speaking must have reminded Mr. Snow
that she was present. In the unceremonious manner that he had laid hands
upon the chimney bag, he now laid them upon her shoulders, and
marshalled her outside the door.

"You go downstairs, Miss Ethel. And do not come within a mile of this
chamber again, until I give you leave to do so."

"I will not be moved into Ethel's room!" interposed Sarah Anne,
imperiously and fretfully. "It is not furnished with half the comforts
of mine. And it has only a bit of bedside carpet! I will not go there,
Mr. Snow."

"Now look you here, Miss Sarah Anne!" said the surgeon firmly. "I am
responsible for bringing you well out of this illness; and I shall take
my own way to do it. If not; if I am to be contradicted at every
suggestion; Lady Sarah may summon some one else to attend you: I will
not undertake it."

"My darling, you shall not be moved to Ethel's room," cried my lady
coaxingly: "you shall be moved into mine. It is larger than this, you
know, Mr. Snow, with a thorough draught through it, if you choose to put
the windows and door open."

"Very well," said Mr. Snow. "Let me find her in it when I come up again
this evening. And if there's a carpet on the floor, take it up. Carpets
were never intended for bedrooms."

He passed into one of the sitting-rooms with Lady Sarah when he
descended. "What do you think of the case?" she eagerly asked.

"There will be some difficulty with it," was the candid reply. "Lady
Sarah, her hair must come off."

"Her hair come off!" uttered Lady Sarah, aghast. "That it never shall!
She has the loveliest hair! What is Ethel's hair, compared with hers?"

"You heard the determination I expressed, Lady Sarah," he quietly said.

"But Sarah Anne will never allow it to be done," she returned, shifting
the ground of remonstrance from her own shoulders. "And to do it in
opposition to her would be enough to kill her."

"It will not be done in opposition to her," he answered. "She will be
unconscious before it is attempted."

Lady Sarah's heart sank. "You anticipate that she will be dangerously
ill?"

"In these cases there is always danger, Lady Sarah. But worse cases
than--- as I believe--hers will be, have recovered from it."

"If I lose her, I shall die myself!" she passionately uttered. "And, if
she is to have it badly, she will die! Remember, Mr. Snow, how weak she
has always been!"

"We sometimes find that weak constitutions battle best with an
epidemic," he replied. "Many a sound one has it struck down and taken
off; many a sickly one has struggled through it, and been the stronger
for it afterwards."

"Everything shall be done as you wish," said Lady Sarah, speaking meekly
in her great fear.

"Very well. There is one caution I would earnestly impress upon you:
that of keeping Ethel from the sick-room."

"But there is no one to whom Sarah Anne is so accustomed, as a nurse,"
objected Lady Sarah.

"Madam!" burst forth the doctor in his heat, "would you subject Ethel to
the risk of taking the infection, in deference to Sarah Anne's
selfishness, or to yours? Better lose all your house contains than lose
Ethel! She is its greatest treasure."

"I know how remarkably prejudiced you have always been in Ethel's
favour!" resentfully spoke Lady Sarah.

"If I disliked her as much as I like her, I should be equally solicitous
to guard her from the danger of infection," said Mr. Snow. "If you
choose to put Ethel out of consideration, you cannot put Thomas
Godolphin. In justice to him, she must be taken care of."

Lady Sarah opened her mouth to reply; but closed it again. Strange words
had been hovering upon her lips: "If Thomas Godolphin were not blind,
his choice would have fallen upon Sarah Anne; not upon Ethel." In her
heart that was a sore topic of resentment: for she was quite alive to
the advantages of a union with a Godolphin. Those words were suppressed;
to give place to others.

"Ethel is in the house; and therefore must be liable to infection,
whether she visits the room or not. I cannot fence her round with a
wall, so that not a breath of tainted atmosphere shall touch her. I
would if I could; but I cannot."

"I would send her from the house, Lady Sarah. At any rate, I forbid her
to go near her sister. I don't want two patients on my hands, instead of
one," he added in his quaint fashion, as he took his departure.

He was about to get into his gig, when he saw Mr. Godolphin advancing
with a quick step. "Which of them is it who is seized?" inquired the
latter, as he came up.

"Not Ethel, thank goodness!" responded the surgeon. "It is Sarah Anne. I
have been recommending my lady to send Ethel from home. I should send
her, were she a daughter of mine."

"Is Sarah Anne likely to have it dangerously?"

"I think so. Is there any necessity for you going to the house just now,
Mr. Godolphin?"

Thomas Godolphin smiled. "There is no necessity for my keeping away. I
do not fear the fever any more than you do."

He passed into the garden as he spoke, and Mr. Snow drove away. Ethel
saw him, and came out to him.

"Oh, Thomas, do not come in! do not come!"

His only answer was to take her on his arm and enter. He threw open the
drawing-room window, that as much air might circulate through the house
as possible, and stood there with her, holding her before him.

"Ethel! what am I to do with you?"

"To do with me! What should you do with me, Thomas?"

"Do you know, my darling, that I cannot _afford_ to let this danger
touch you?"

"I am not afraid," she gently whispered.

He knew that: she had a brave, unselfish heart. But he was afraid for
her, for he loved her with a jealous love; jealous of any evil that
might come too near her.

"I should like to take you out of the house with me now, Ethel. I should
like to take you far from this fever-tainted town. Will you come?"

She looked up at him with a smile, the colour rising to her face. "How
could I, Thomas!"

Anxious thoughts were passing through the mind of Thomas Godolphin. We
cannot put aside the _convenances_ of life; though there are times when
they press upon us with an iron weight. He would have given almost his
own life to take Ethel from that house: but how was he to do it? No
friend would be likely to receive her: not even his own sisters: they
would have too much dread of the infection she might bring with her. He
would fain have carried her off to some sea-breezed town, and watch over
her and guard her there, until the danger should be over. None would
have protected her more honourably than Thomas Godolphin. But--those
_convenances_ that the world has to bow down to! how would the step have
agreed with them? Another thought, little less available for common use,
passed through his mind.

"Listen, Ethel!" he whispered. "It would be only to procure a license,
and half an hour spent at All Souls with Mr. Hastings. It could be all
done, and you away with me before nightfall."

She scarcely understood his meaning. Then, as it dawned upon her, she
bent her head and her blushing face, laughing at the wild improbability.

"Oh, Thomas! Thomas! you are only joking. What would people say?"

"Would it make any difference to us what they said?"

"It could _not be_, Thomas," she whispered seriously; "it is as an
impossible vision. Were all other things meet, how could I run away from
my sister, on her bed of sickness, to marry you?"

Ethel was right: and Thomas Godolphin felt that she was so. Punctilios
must be observed, no matter at what cost. He held her fondly to his
heart.

"If aught of ill should arise to you from your remaining here, I shall
blame myself as long as life shall last. My love! my love!"

Mr. Godolphin could not linger. He must be at the bank, for Saturday was
their most busy day of all the week: it was market-day at Prior's Ash:
though he had stolen a moment to leave it when the imperfect news
reached him. George was in the private room alone when he entered.
"Shall you be going to Lady Godolphin's Folly this evening, George?" he
inquired.

"The Fates permitting," replied Mr. George, who was buried five fathoms
deep in business; though he would have preferred to be five fathoms deep
in pleasure. "Why?"

"You can tell my father that I am sorry not to be able to spend an hour
with him, as I had promised. Lady Godolphin will not thank me to be
running from Lady Sarah's house to hers just now."

"Thomas," warmly spoke George, in an impulse of kindly feeling: "I do
hope it will not extend itself to Ethel!"

"I hope not," fervently breathed Thomas Godolphin.




CHAPTER VI.

CHARLOTTE PAIN.


A fine old door of oak, a heavy door, standing deep within a portico,
into which you might almost have driven a coach-and-six, introduced you
to Ashlydyat. The hall was dark and small, the only light admitted to it
being from mullioned windows of stained glass. Innumerable passages
branched off from the hall. One peculiarity of Ashlydyat was, that you
could scarcely enter a single room in it, but you must first go down a
passage, short or long, to reach it. Had the house been designed by any
architect with a head upon his shoulders and a little common sense with
it, he might have made it a handsome mansion with large and noble rooms.
As it was, the rooms were cramped and narrow, cornered and confined; and
space was lost in these worthless passages.

In the least sombre room of the house, one with a large modern window
(put into it by Sir George Godolphin to please my lady, just before that
whim came into her head to build the Folly), opening upon a gravel walk,
were two ladies, on the evening of this same Saturday. Were they
sisters? They did not look like it. Charlotte Pain you have seen. She
stood underneath the wax-lights of the chandelier, tall, commanding,
dark, handsome; scarlet flowers in her hair, a scarlet bouquet in her
corsage; her dress a rich cream-coloured silk interwoven with scarlet
sprigs. She had in her hand a small black dog of the King Charles
species, holding him up to the lights, and laughing at his anger. He was
snarling fractiously, whether at the lights or the position might be
best known to his mistress; whilst at her feet barked and yelped an ugly
Scotch terrier, probably because _he_ was not also held up: for dogs,
like men, covet what they cannot obtain.

In a dress of pink gauze, with pretty pink cheeks, smooth features, and
hazel eyes, her auburn hair interlaced with pearls, her height scarcely
reaching to Miss Pain's shoulder, was Mrs. Verrall. She was younger than
her sister: for sisters they were: a lady who passed through life with
easy indifference, or appeared to do so, and called her husband
"Verrall." She stood before the fire, a delicate white Indian screen in
her hand, shading her face from the blaze. The room was hot, and the
large window had been thrown open. So calm was the night, that not a
breath of air came in to stir the wax-lights: the wind, which you heard
moaning round the Rectory of All Souls in the morning, whirling the
leaves and displeasing Mrs. Hastings, had dropped at sundown to a dead
calm.

"Charlotte, I think I shall make Verrall take me to town with him! The
thought has just come into my mind."

Charlotte made no answer. Possibly she did not hear the words, for the
dogs were barking and she was laughing louder than ever. Mrs. Verrall
stamped her foot petulantly, and her voice rang through the room.

"Charlotte, then, do you hear me? Put that horrible little brute down,
or I will ring for both to be taken away! One might as well keep a
screaming cockatoo! I say I have a great mind to go up to town with
Verrall."

"Verrall would not take you," responded Charlotte, putting her King
Charles on to the back of the terrier.

"Why do you think that?"

"He goes up for business only."

"It will be so dull for me, all alone!" complained Mrs. Verrall. "You in
Scotland, he in London, and I moping myself to death in this gloomy
Ashlydyat! I wish we had never taken it!"

Charlotte Pain bent her dark eyes in surprise upon her sister. "Since
when have you found out that you do not like Ashlydyat?"

"Oh, I don't know. It is a gloomy place inside, especially if you
contrast it with Lady Godolphin's Folly. And they are beginning to
whisper of ghostly things being abroad on the Dark Plain!"

"For shame, Kate!" exclaimed Charlotte Pain. "Ghostly things! Oh, I
see--you were laughing."

"Is it not enough to make us all laugh--these tales of the Godolphins?
But I shall convert it into a pretext for not being left alone here when
you and Verrall are away. Why do you go, Charlotte?" Mrs. Verrall added,
in a tone which had changed to marked significance. "It is waste of
time."

Charlotte Pain would not notice the innuendo. "I never was in Scotland,
and shall like the visit," she said, picking up the King Charles again.
"I enjoy fine scenery: you do not care for it."

"Oh," said Mrs. Verrall; "it is scenery that draws you, is it? Take you
care, Charlotte."

"Care of what?"

"Shall I tell you? You must not fly into one of your tempers and pull my
hair. You are growing too fond of George Godolphin."

Charlotte Pain gave no trace of "flying into a temper;" she remained
perfectly cool and calm. "Well?" was all she said, her lip curling.

"If it would bring you any good; if it would end in your becoming Mrs.
George Godolphin; I should say _well_; go into it with your whole heart
and energy. But it will not so end; and your time and plans are being
wasted."

"Has he told you so much?" ironically asked Charlotte.

"Nonsense! There was one in possession of the field before you,
Charlotte--if my observation goes for anything. _She_ will win the race;
you will not even be in at the distance chair. I speak of Maria
Hastings."

"You speak of what you know nothing," carelessly answered Charlotte
Pain, a self-satisfied smile upon her lips.

"Very well. When it is all over, and you find your time _has_ been
wasted, do not say I never warned you. George Godolphin may be a prize
worth entering the lists for; I do not say he is not: but there is no
chance of your winning him."

Charlotte Pain tossed the dog upwards and caught him as he descended, a
strange look of triumph on her brow.

"And--Charlotte," went on Mrs. Verrall in a lower tone, "there is a
proverb, you know, about two stools. We _may_ fall to the ground if we
try to sit upon both at once. How would Dolf like this expedition to
Scotland, handsome George making one in it?"

Charlotte's eyes flashed now. "I care no more for Dolf than I care
for--not half so much as I care for this poor little brute. Don't bring
up Dolf to me, Kate!"

"As you please. I would not mix myself up with your private affairs for
the world. Only a looker-on sometimes sees more than those engaged in
the play."

Crossing the apartment, Mrs. Verrall traversed the passage that led from
it, and opened the door of another room. There sat her husband at the
dessert-table, taking his wine alone, and smoking a cigar. He was a
slight man, twice the age of his wife, his hair and whiskers yellow, and
his eyes set deep in his head: rather a good-looking man on the whole,
but a very silent one. "I want to go to London with you," said Mrs.
Verrall.

"You can't," he answered.

She advanced to the table, and sat down near him. "There's Charlotte
going one way, and you another----"

"Don't stop Charlotte," he interrupted, with a meaning nod.

"And I must be left alone in the house; to the ghosts and dreams and
shadows they are inventing about that Dark Plain. I _will_ go with you,
Verrall."

"I should not take you with me to save the ghosts running off with you,"
was Mr. Verrall's answer, as he pressed the ashes from his cigar on a
pretty shell, set in gold. "I go up _incog._ this time."

"Then I'll fill the house with guests," she petulantly said.

"Fill it, and welcome, if you like, Kate," he replied. "But, to go to
London, you must wait for another opportunity."

"What a hateful thing business is! I wish it had never been invented!"

"A great many more wish the same. And have more cause to wish it than
you," he drily answered. "Is tea ready?"

Mrs. Verrall returned to the room she had left, to order it in.
Charlotte Pain was then standing outside the large window, leaning
against its frame, the King Charles lying quietly in her arms, and her
own ears on the alert, for she thought she heard advancing footsteps;
and they seemed to be stealthy ones. The thought--or, perhaps, the
wish--that it might be George Godolphin, stealing up to surprise her,
flashed into her mind. She bent her head, and stroked the dog, in the
prettiest unconsciousness of the approaching footsteps.

A hand was laid upon her shoulder. "Charlotte!"

She cried out--a sharp, genuine cry of dismay--dropped the King Charles,
and bounded into the room. The intruder followed her.

"Why, Dolf!" uttered Mrs. Verrall in much astonishment. "Is it you?"

"It is not my ghost," replied the gentleman, holding out his hand. He
was a little man, with fair hair, this Mr. Rodolf Pain, cousin to the
two ladies. "Did I alarm you, Charlotte?"

"Alarm me!" she angrily rejoined. "You must have sprung from the earth."

"I have sprung from the railway station. Where is Verrall?"

"Why have you come down so unexpectedly?" exclaimed Mrs. Verrall.

"To see Verrall. I return to-morrow."

"Verrall goes up to-morrow night."

"I know he does. And that is why I have come down."

"You might have waited to see him in London," said Charlotte, her
equanimity not yet restored.

"It was necessary for me to see him before he reached London. Where
shall I find him, Mrs. Verrall?"

"In the dining-room," Mrs. Verrall replied. "What can you want with him
so hurriedly?"

"Business," laconically replied Rodolf Pain, as he left the room in
search of Mr. Verrall.

It was not the only interruption. Ere two minutes had elapsed, Lady
Godolphin was shown in, causing Mrs. Verrall and her sister almost as
much surprise as did the last intruder. She had walked over from the
Folly, attended by a footman, and some agitation peeped out through her
usual courtly suavity of manner, as she asked whether Charlotte Pain
could be ready to start for Scotland on the morrow, instead of on
Monday.

"To-morrow will be Sunday!" returned Charlotte.

"I do not countenance Sunday travelling, if other days can be made use
of," continued Lady Godolphin. "But there are cases where it is not only
necessary, but justifiable; when we are glad to feel the value of those
Divine words, 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath.' Fever has broken out again, and I shall make use of to-morrow
to escape from it. We start in the morning."

"I shall be ready and willing to go," replied Charlotte.

"It has appeared at Lady Sarah Grame's," added Lady Godolphin, "one of
the most unlikely homes it might have been expected to visit. After
this, none of us can feel safe. Were that fever to attack Sir George,
his life, in his present reduced state, would not be worth an hour's
purchase."

The dread of fever had been strong upon Lady Godolphin from the first;
but never had it been so keen as now. Some are given to this dread in an
unwonted degree: whilst an epidemic lasts (of whatever nature it may be)
they live in a constant state of fear and pain. It is death they fear:
being sent violently to the unknown life to come. I know of only one
remedy for this: to be at peace with God: death or life are alike then.
Lady Godolphin had not found it.

"Will Mr. Hastings permit his daughter to travel on a Sunday?" exclaimed
Mrs. Verrall, the idea suddenly occurring to her, as Lady Godolphin was
leaving.

"That is my business," was my lady's frigid answer. It has been said
that she brooked not interference in the slightest degree.

It certainly could not be called the business of Mr. Hastings. For the
travellers were far away from Prior's Ash the next morning before he had
received an inkling of the departure.




CHAPTER VII.

BROOMHEAD


The contrast between them was great. You could see it most remarkably as
they sat together. Both were beautiful, but of a different type of
beauty. There are some people--and they bear a very large proportion to
the whole--- to whom the human countenance is as a sealed book. There
are others for whom that book stands open to its every page. The
capacity for reading character--what is it? where does it lie?
Phrenologists call it, not inaptly, comparison.

There stands a man before you, a stranger; seen now for the first time.
As you glance at him you involuntarily shrink within yourself, and
trench imaginary walls around you, and say: That man is a bad man. Your
eyes fall upon another--equally a stranger until that moment--and your
honest heart flows out to him. You could extend to him the hand of
confidence there and then, for that man's countenance is an index to his
nature, and you _know_ that you may trust him to the death. In what part
of the face does this index seat itself? In the eyes? the mouth? the
features separately? or in the whole?

Certainly in the whole. To judge of temper alone, the eye and
mouth--provided you take them in repose--are sure indications; but, to
judge of what a man is, you must look to the whole. You don't know
precisely where to look for it--any more than do those know who cannot
see it at all. You cannot say that it lies in the forehead, the
eyebrows, the eyes, or the chin. You see it, and that is the most you
can tell. Beauty and ugliness, in themselves, have nothing to do with
it. An ugly countenance may, and often does, bear its own innate
goodness, as certainly as that one of beauty sometimes bears its own
repulsion. Were there certain unerring signs to judge by, the whole
human race might become readers of character: but that will never be, so
long as the world shall last.

In like manner, as we cannot tell precisely where nature's marks lie, so
are we unable to tell where lies the capacity to read them. Is it a
faculty? or an instinct? This I do know: that it is one of the great
gifts of God. Where the power exists in an eminent degree, rely upon it
its possessor is never deceived in his estimation of character. It is
born with him into the world. As a little child he has his likes and
dislikes to persons: and sometimes may be whipped for expressing them
too strongly. As he grows up, the faculty--instinct--call it what you
will--is ever in exercise; at rest when he sleeps; never at any other
time.

Those who do not possess the gift (no disparagement to them: they may
possess others, equally or more valuable) cavil at it--laugh at it--- do
not believe in it. Read what people are by their face? Nonsense! _they_
know better. Others, who admit the fact, have talked of "reducing it to
a science," whatever that may mean; of teaching it to the world, as we
teach the classics to our boys. It may be done, say they. Possibly. We
all acknowledge the wonders of this most wonderful age. Fishes are made
to talk; fleas to comport themselves as gentlemen; monkeys are
discovered to be men--or men monkeys--which is it? a shirt is advertised
to be made in four minutes by a new sewing machine. We send ourselves in
photograph to make morning calls. The opposite ends of the world are
brought together by electric telegraph. Chloroform has rendered the
surgeon's knife something rather agreeable than otherwise. We are made
quite at home with "spirits," and ghosts are reduced to a theory. Not to
mention other discoveries connected with the air, earth, and water,
which would require an F.R.S. to descant upon. Wonderful discoveries of
a wonderful age! Compare the last fifty years with the previous fifty
years; when people made their wills before going to London, and flocked
to the fair to see the learned pig point out the identical young woman
who had had the quarrel with her sweetheart the previous Sunday
afternoon! It is not my province to dispute these wonders: they may, or
may not, be facts; but when you attempt to reduce this great gift to a
"science," the result will be failure. Try and do so. Set up a school
for it; give lectures; write books; beat it into heads; and then say to
your pupils, "Now that you are accomplished, go out into the world and
use your eyes and read your fellow-men." And the pupil will, perhaps,
think he does read them; but, the first deduction he draws, will be the
last--a wrong one. Neither art nor science can teach it; neither man nor
woman can make it theirs by any amount of labour: where the faculty is
not theirs by divine gift, it cannot be made to exist by human skill.

A reader of character would have noted the contrast between those two
young ladies as they stood there: he would have trusted the one; he
would not have trusted the other. And yet, Charlotte Pain had her good
qualities also. She was kind-hearted in the main, liberal by nature,
pleasant tempered, of a spirit firm and resolute, fitted to battle with
the world and to make good her own way in it. But she was not truthful;
she was not high principled; she was not one, whom I--had I been George
Godolphin--would have chosen for my wife, or for my bosom friend.

Maria Hastings was eminent in what Charlotte Pain had not. Of rare
integrity; highly principled; gentle, and refined; incapable of deceit;
and with a loving nature that could be true unto death! But she was a
very child in the ways of the world; timid, irresolute, unfitted to
battle with its cares; swayed easily by those she loved; and all too
passionately fond of George Godolphin.

Look at them both now--Charlotte, with her marked, brilliant features;
her pointed chin, telling of self-will; her somewhat full, red lips; the
pose of the head upon her tall, firm form: her large eyes, made to
dazzle more than to attract; her perfectly self-possessed, not to say
free manners!--All told of power; but not of innate refinement. Maria
had too much of this refinement--if such a thing may be said of a young
and gentle lady. She was finely and sensitively organized; considerate
and gentle. It would be impossible for Maria Hastings to hurt wilfully
the feelings of a fellow-creature. To the poorest beggar in the street
she would have been courteous, considerate, almost humble. Not so much
as a word of scorn could she cast to another, even in her inmost heart.
The very formation of her hands would betray how sensitive and refined
was her nature. And that is another thing which bears its own
character--the hand; if you know how to read it. Her hands were of
exceeding beauty; long, slender, taper fingers, of delicate aspect from
a physical point of view. Every motion of those hands--and they were
ever restless--was a word; every unconscious, nervous movement of the
frail, weak-looking fingers had its peculiar characteristic. Maria
Hastings had been accused of being vain of her hands; of displaying them
more than was necessary: but the accusation, utterly untrue, was made by
those who understood her but little, and her hands less. Such hands are
rare: and it is as well that they are so: for they indicate a nature far
removed from the common; a timid, intellectual, and painfully sensitive
nature, which the rude world can neither understand, nor, perhaps, love.
The gold, too much refined, is not fitted for ordinary uses. Charlotte
Pain's hands were widely different: firm, plump, white; not small, and
never moving unconsciously of themselves.

These pretty hands resting upon her knee, sat Maria Hastings, doing
nothing. Maria--I grieve to have it to say of her in this very
utilitarian age--was rather addicted to doing nothing. In her home, the
Rectory, Maria was reproved on that score more than on any other. It is
ever so with those who live much in the inward life. Maria would fall
into a train of thought--and be idle.

Master Reginald Hastings would have lost his bet--that George Godolphin
would be in Scotland a week after they arrived there--had he found any
one to take it. Ten or eleven days had elapsed, and no George had come,
and no news of his intention of coming. It was not for _this_, to be
moped to death in an old Scotch country-house, that Charlotte Pain had
accepted the invitation of Lady Godolphin. Careless George--careless as
to the import any of his words might bear--had said to her when they
were talking of Scotland: "I wish you were to be of the party; to help
us while away the dull days." Mr. George had spoken in gallantry--he was
too much inclined so to speak, not only to Charlotte--without ever
dreaming that his wish would be fulfilled literally. But, when Lady
Godolphin afterwards gave the invitation--Sir George had remarked aloud
at the family dinner-table that Miss Pain had fished for it--Charlotte
accepted it with undisguised pleasure. In point of fact, Mr. George, had
the choice been given him, would have preferred having Maria Hastings to
himself there.

But he did not come. Eleven days, and no George Godolphin. Charlotte
began to lay mental plans for the arrival of some sudden telegraphic
message, demanding her immediate return to Prior's Ash; and Maria could
only hope, and look, and long in secret.

It was a gloomy day; not rainy, but enveloped in mist, almost as bad as
rain. They had gone out together, after luncheon, these two young
ladies, but the weather drove them in again. Charlotte was restless and
peevish. She stirred the fire as if she had a spite against it; she
dashed off a few bars at the piano, on which instrument she was a
skilful player; she cut half the leaves of a new periodical and then
flung it from her; she admired herself in the pier-glass; she sat down
opposite Maria Hastings and her stillness; and now she jumped up again
and violently rang the bell, to order her desk to be brought to her.
Maria roused herself from her reverie.

"Charlotte, what is the matter? One would think you had St. Vitus's
dance."

"So I have--if to twitch all over with the fidgets is to have it. How
you can sit so calm, so unmoved, is a marvel to me. Maria, if I were to
be another ten days in this house, I should go mad."

"Why did you come to it?"

"I thought it might be a pleasant change. Ashlydyat grows gloomy
sometimes. How was I to know my lady led so quiet a life here? She was
always talking of 'Broomhead,' 'Broomhead!' I could not possibly suppose
it to be so dull a place as this!"

"It is not dull in itself. The house and grounds are charming."

"Oh dear!" uttered Charlotte. "I wonder what fogs were sent for?"

"So do I," laughed Maria. "I should have finished that sketch, but for
this mist."

"No saddle-horses!" went on Charlotte. "I shall forget how to ride. I
never heard of such a thing as a country-house without saddle-horses.
Where was the use of bringing my new cap and habit? Only to have them
crushed!"

Maria seemed to have relapsed into thought. She made no reply. Presently
Charlotte began again.

"I wish I had my dogs here! Lady Godolphin would not extend the
invitation even to King Charlie. She said she did not like dogs. What a
heathen she must be! If I could only see my darling pet, King Charlie!
Kate never mentioned him once in her letter this morning!"

The words aroused Maria to animation. "Did you receive a letter this
morning from Prior's Ash? You did not tell me."

"Margery brought it to my bedroom. It came last night, I fancy, and lay
in the letter-box. I do not think Sir George ought to keep that
letter-box entirely under his own control," continued Charlotte. "He
grows forgetful. Some evenings I know it is never looked at."

"I have not observed that Sir George is forgetful," dissented Maria.

"You observe nothing. I say that Sir George declines daily: both bodily
and mentally. I see a great difference in him, even in the short time
that we have been here. He is not the man he was."

"He has his business letters regularly; and answers them."

"Quite a farce to send them," mocked handsome Charlotte. "Thomas
Godolphin is ultra-filial."

"What news does Mrs. Verrall give you?" inquired Maria.

"Not much. Sarah Anne Grame is out of immediate danger, and the fever
has attacked two or three others."

"In Lady Sarah's house?"

"Nonsense! No. That sickly girl, Sarah Anne, took it because I suppose
she could not help it: but there's not much fear of its spreading to the
rest of the house. If they had been going to have it, it would have
shown itself ere this. It has crept on to those pests of cottages by the
Pollards. The Bonds are down with it."

"The worst spot it could have got to!" exclaimed Maria. "Those cottages
are unhealthy at the best of times."

"They had a dinner-party on Saturday," continued Charlotte.

"At the cottages!"

Charlotte laughed. "At Ashlydyat. The Godolphins were there. At least,
she mentioned Bessy, and your chosen cavalier, Mr. George."

Maria's cheek flushed crimson. Charlotte Pain was rather fond of this
kind of satire. Had she believed there was anything serious between
George Godolphin and Maria, she would have bitten her tongue out rather
than allude to it. It was not Charlotte's intention to spare him to
Maria Hastings.

Charlotte Pain at length settled herself to her desk. Maria drew nearer
to the fire, and sat looking into it, her cheek leaning on her hand: sat
there until the dusk of the winter's afternoon fell upon the room. She
turned to her companion.

"Can you see, Charlotte?"

"Scarcely. I have just finished."

A few minutes, and Charlotte folded her letters. Two. The one was
directed to Mrs. Verrall; the other to Rodolf Pain, Esquire.

"I shall go up to dress," she said, locking her desk.

"There's plenty of time," returned Maria. "I wonder where Sir George and
Lady Godolphin are? They did not intend to stay out so late."

"Oh, when those ancient codgers get together, talking of their past
times and doings, they take no more heed how time goes than we do at a
ball," carelessly spoke Charlotte.

Maria laughed. "Lucky for you, Charlotte, that Lady Godolphin is not
within hearing. 'Ancient codgers!'"

Charlotte left the room, carrying her letters with her. Maria sat on,
some time longer--and then it occurred to her to look at her watch. A
quarter to five.

A quarter to five! Had she been asleep? No, only dreaming. She started
up, threw wide the door, and was passing swiftly into the dark
ante-chamber. The house had not been lighted, and the only light came
from the fire behind Maria--revealing her clearly enough, but rendering
that ante-chamber particularly dark. Little wonder, then, that she gave
a scream when she found herself caught in some one's arms, against whom
she had nearly run.

"Is it you, Sir George? I beg your pardon."

Not Sir George. Sir George would not have held her to him with that
impassioned fervour. Sir George would not have taken those fond kisses
from her lips. It was another George, just come in from his long day's
journey. He pressed his face, cold from the fresh night air, upon her
warm one. "My dearest! I knew you would be the first to welcome me!"

Dark enough around, it was still; but a light as of some sunny Eden,
illumined the heart of Maria Hastings. The shock of joy was indeed
great. Every vein was throbbing, every pulse tingling, and George
Godolphin, had he never before been sure that her deep and entire love
was his, must have known it then.

A servant was heard approaching with lights. George Godolphin turned to
the fire, and Maria turned and stood near him.

"Did any of you expect me?" he inquired.

"Oh no!" impulsively answered Maria. "I can scarcely now believe that it
is you in reality."

He looked at her and laughed; his gay laugh: as much as to say that he
had given her a tolerable proof of his reality. She stood, in her
pretty, timid manner, before the fire, her eyelids drooping, and the
flame lighting up her fair face.

"Is my father at home?" he asked, taking off his overcoat. He had walked
from the railway station, a mile or two distant.

"He went out with Lady Godolphin this morning to pay a visit to some old
friends. I thought they would have returned long before this."

"Is he getting strong, Maria?"

Maria thought of what Charlotte Pain had said, and hesitated. "He
appears to me to be better than when we left Prior's Ash. But he is far
from strong."

The servant finished lighting the chandelier and retired. George
Godolphin watched the door close, and then drew Maria before him, gazing
down at her.

"Let me look at you, my darling! Are you glad to see me?"

Glad to see him! The tears nearly welled up with the intensity of her
emotion. "I had begun to think you were not coming at all," she said, in
a low tone. "Charlotte Pain received a letter from Mrs. Verrall this
morning, in which you were mentioned as----"

Charlotte herself interrupted the conclusion of the sentence. She came
in, dressed for dinner. George turned to greet her, his manner warm; his
hands outstretched.

"Margery said Mr. George was here! I did not believe her!" cried
Charlotte, resigning her hands to him. "Did you come on the
telegraph-wires?"

"They would not have brought me quickly enough to _your_ presence,"
cried Mr. George.

Charlotte laughed gaily. "I was just prophesying you would not come at
all. Mrs. Verrall did not inform me that you were about to start, amidst
her other items of intelligence. Besides, I know that you are rather
addicted to forgetting your promises."

"What items had Mrs. Verrall to urge against me?" demanded George.

"I forget them now. Nothing I believe. Is Prior's Ash alive still?"

"It was, when I left it."

"And the fever, George?" inquired Maria.

"Fever? Oh, I don't know much about it."

"As if fevers were in his way!" ironically cried Charlotte Pain. "He
troubles himself no more about fevers than does Lady Godolphin."

"Than Lady Godolphin would like to do, I suppose you mean, Miss Pain?"
he rejoined.

Maria was looking at him wistfully--almost reproachfully. He saw it, and
turned to her with a smile. "Has it in truth attacked the cottages down
by the Pollards?" she asked.

George nodded. He was not so ignorant as he appeared to be. "Poor Bond
had it first; and now two of his children are attacked. I understand Mr.
Hastings declares it is a judgment upon the town, for not looking better
after the hovels and the drainage."

"Has Bond recovered?" asked Maria.

"No."

"Not recovered?" she exclaimed quickly.

"He is dead, Maria."

She clasped her hands, shocked at the news. "Dead. Leaving that large,
helpless family! And Sarah Anne Grame?--is she out of danger?"

"From the violence of the fever. But she is in so dangerously weak a
state from its effects, that it will be next to a miracle if she
recovers. Lady Sarah is half out of her mind. She had prayers put up for
Sarah Anne on Sunday. Pretty Ethel has escaped! to the delight of
Prior's Ash in general, and of Thomas in particular. What carriage is
that?" suddenly broke off George, as the sound of one approaching was
heard.

It proved to be Sir George's, bringing home himself and my lady. George
hastened to meet them as they entered the hall, his handsome face
glowing, his bright chestnut hair taking a golden tinge in the
lamp-light, his hands held out. "My dear father!"

The old knight, with a cry of glad surprise, caught the hands, and
pressed them to his heart. My lady advanced with her welcome. She bent
her tinted cheek forwards, by way of greeting, and Mr. George touched it
with his delicate lips--lightly, as became its softened bloom.

"So you have found your way to us, George! I expected you would have
done so before."

"Did you, madam?"

"Did we?" cried the knight, taking up the word. "Listen to that vain
George! He pretends to ignore the fact that there was an attraction
here. Had a certain young lady remained at Prior's Ash, I expect you
would not have given us much of your company at Broomhead. If Miss
Charlotte----"

"Did you call me, Sir George?" interrupted Charlotte, tripping forward
from the back of the hall, where she and Maria stood, out of sight, but
within hearing.

"No, my dear, I did not call you," replied Sir George Godolphin.




CHAPTER VIII.

A SNAKE IN THE GRASS.


Seated on a camp-stool, amidst a lovely bit of woodland scenery, was
Maria Hastings. The day, beautifully bright, was warm as one in
September; delightful for the pleasure-seekers at Broomhead, but bad for
the fever at Prior's Ash. Maria was putting some finishing touches to a
sketch--she had taken many since she came--and Mr. George Godolphin and
Charlotte Pain watched her as they pleased, or took sauntering strolls
to a distance.

Lady Godolphin was as fond of Broomhead as the Godolphins were of
Ashlydyat. Certainly Broomhead was the more attractive home of the two.
A fine house of exquisite taste; with modern rooms and modern
embellishments; and when she invited the two young ladies to accompany
her on a visit to it, she was actuated as much by a sense of exultation
at exhibiting the place to them, as by a desire for their companionship,
though she did like and desire the companionship. Lady Godolphin, who
never read, and never worked; in short, never did anything; was obliged
to have friends with her to dissipate her ennui and cheat time. She
liked young ladies best; for they did not interfere with her own will,
and were rarely exacting visitors.

But she required less of this companionship at Broomhead. There she knew
every one, and every one knew her. She was sufficiently familiar with
the smallest and poorest cottage to take an interest in its ill-doings
and its short-comings; at least, as much interest as it was possible to
the nature of Lady Godolphin to take. Old acquaintances dropped in
without ceremony and remained the morning with her, gossiping of times
past and present: or she dropped into their houses, and remained with
them. Of gaiety there was none: Sir George's state of health forbade it:
and in this quiet social intercourse--which Charlotte Pain held in
especial contempt--the young visitors were not wanted. Altogether they
were much at liberty, and went roaming where they would, under the
protection of Mr. George Godolphin.

He had now been a week at Broomhead: flirting with Charlotte, giving
stolen minutes to Maria. A looker-on might have decided that Miss Pain
was the gentleman's chief attraction: for, in public, his attentions
were principally given to her. _She_ may be pardoned for estimating them
at more than they were worth: but she could very well have welcomed any
friendly wind that would have wafted away Maria, and have kept her away.
They knew, those two girls, that their mutual intercourse was of a
hollow nature; their paraded friendship, their politeness, rotten at the
core. Each was jealous of the other; and the one subject which filled
their minds was never alluded to in conversation. Either might have
affirmed to the other, "You are aware that I watch you and George: my
jealous eyes are upon your every movement, my jealous ears are ever
open." But these avowals are not made in social life, and Charlotte and
Maria observed studied courtesy, making believe to be mutually
unconscious: knowing all the time that the consciousness existed in a
remarkable degree. It was an artificial state of things.

"How dark you are putting in those trees!" exclaimed Charlotte Pain.

Maria paused, pencil in hand; glanced at the trees opposite, and at the
trees on paper. "Not too dark," she said. "The grove is a heavy one."

"What's that queer-looking thing in the corner? It is like a half-moon,
coming down to pay us a visit."

Maria held out her sketch at arm's distance, laughing merrily. "You do
not understand perspective, Charlotte. Look at it now."

"Not I," said Charlotte. "I understand nothing of the work. They tried
to teach me when I was a child, but I never could make a straight line
without the ruler. After all, where's the use of it? The best-made
sketch cannot rival its model--nature."

"But sketches serve to remind us of familiar places, when we are beyond
their reach," was Maria's answer. "I love drawing."

"Maria draws well," observed George Godolphin, from his swinging perch
on the branch of a neighbouring tree.

She looked up at him, almost gratefully. "This will be one of the best
sketches I have taken here," she said. "It is so thoroughly picturesque:
and that farm-house, under the hill, gives life to the picture."

Charlotte Pain cast her eyes upon the house in the distance over the
green field, to which she had not before vouchsafed a glance. A shade of
contempt crossed her face.

"Call _that_ a farm-house! I should say it was a tumble-down old
cottage."

"It is large for a cottage; and has a barn and a shed round it,"
returned Maria. "I conclude that it was a farm some time."

"It is not inhabited," said Charlotte.

"Oh, yes it is. There is a woman standing at the door. I have put her
into my sketch."

"And her pipe also?" cried George.

"Her pipe!"

George took his own cigar from his mouth, as he answered. "She is
smoking, that woman. A short pipe."

Maria shaded her eyes with her hand, and gazed attentively.
"I--really--do--think--she--is!" she exclaimed slowly. "What a strange
thing!"

"A Welshwoman married to a Scotch husband, possibly," suggested
Charlotte. "The Welsh smoke."

"I'll make her a Welshwoman," said Maria gaily, "with a man's coat, and
a man's hat. But, there's--there's another now. George, it is Margery!"

"Yes," said Mr. George composedly. "I saw her go in half an hour ago.
How smart she is! She must be paying morning calls."

They laughed at this, and watched Margery. A staid woman of middle age,
who had been maid to the late Mrs. Godolphin. Margery dressed plainly,
but she certainly looked smart to-day, as the sun's rays fell upon her.
The sun was unusually bright, and Charlotte Pain remarked it, saying it
made her eyes ache.

"Suspiciously bright," observed George Godolphin.

"Suspiciously?"

He flirted the ashes from his cigar with his finger. "Suspicious of a
storm," he said. "We shall have it, ere long. See those clouds. They
look small and inoffensive; but they mean mischief."

Charlotte Pain strolled away over the meadows towards the side path on
which Margery was advancing. George Godolphin leaped from his seat,
apparently with the intention of following her. But first of all he
approached Maria, and bent to look at her progress.

"Make the farm--as you call it--very conspicuous, Maria, if you are
going to keep the sketch as a memento," said he.

"Is it not a farm?"

"It was, once; until idleness suffered it to drop through."

"Why should I make it particularly conspicuous?" she continued.

There was no reply, and she looked quickly up. A peculiar expression,
one which she did not understand, sat upon his face.

"If we had a mind to cheat the world, Maria, we might do so, by paying a
visit to that house."

"In what way?"

"I might take you in Maria Hastings, and bring you out Mrs. George
Godolphin."

"What do you mean?" she inquired, completely puzzled.

Mr. George laughed. "The man who lives there, Sandy Bray, has made more
couples one than a rustic parson. Some people call him a public
nuisance; others say he is a convenience, as it is three miles to the
nearest kirk. He goes by the nickname of Minister Bray. Many a lad and
lassie have stolen in there, under cover of the twilight, and in five
minutes have come forth again, married, the world being none the wiser."

"Is it the place they call Gretna Green?" inquired Maria in much
astonishment.

"No, it is not Gretna Green. Only a place of the same description, and
equally serviceable."

"But such marriages cannot be binding!"

"Indeed they are. You have surely heard of the Scotch laws?"

"I have been told that any one can marry people in Scotland. I have
heard that the simple declaration of saying you take each other for man
and wife constitutes a marriage."

"Yes; if said before a witness. Would you like to try it, Maria?"

The colour mantled to her face as she bent over her drawing. She smiled
at the joke, simply shaking her head by way of answer. And Mr. George
Godolphin went off laughing, lighting another cigar as he talked.
Overtaking Charlotte Pain just as Margery came up, he accosted the
latter.

"How grand you are, Margery! What's agate?"

"Grand!" returned Margery. "Who says it? What is there grand about me?"

"That shawl displays as many colours as a kaleidoscope. We thought it
was a rainbow coming along. Did it arrive in an express parcel last
night from Paisley?"

"It isn't me that has money to spend upon parcels!" retorted Margery. "I
have too many claims dragging my purse at both ends, for that."

A faithful servant was Margery, in spite of her hard features, and her
stern speech. Scant of ceremony she had always been, and scant of
ceremony she would remain. In fact, she was given to treating the
younger branches of the Godolphins, Mr. George included, very much as
she had treated them when they were children. They knew her sterling
worth, and did not quarrel with her severe manners.

"When you have half a dozen kin pulling at you, 'I want this!' from one,
and 'I want that!' from another, and the same cry running through all,
it isn't much money you can keep to spend on shawls," resumed Margery.
"I was a fool to come here; that's what I was! When the master said to
me, 'You had better come with us, Margery,' I ought to have answered,
'No, Sir George, I'm better away.'"

"Well, what is the grievance, Margery?" George asked, while Charlotte
Pain turned from one to the other in curiosity.

"Why, they are on at me for money, that's what it is, Mr. George. My
lady sent for me this morning to say she intended to call and see Selina
to-day. Of course I knew what it meant--that I was to go and give them a
hint to have things tidy--for, if there's one thing my lady won't do, it
is to put her foot into a pigsty. So I threw on my shawl, that you are
laughing at, and went. There was nothing the matter with the place, for
a wonder; but there was with them. Selina, she's in bed, ill--and if she
frets as she's fretting now, she won't get out of it in a hurry. Why did
she marry the fellow? It does make me so vexed!"

"What has she to fret about?" continued George.

"What does she always have to fret about?" retorted Margery. "His
laziness, and the children's ill-doings. They go roaming about the
country, here, there, and everywhere, after work, as they say, after
places; and then they get into trouble and untold worry, and come home
or send home for money to help them out of it! One of them, Nick--and a
good name for him, say I!--must be off into Wales to those relations of
Bray's; and he has been at some mischief there, and is in prison for it,
and is now committed for trial. And the old woman has walked all the way
here to get funds from them, to pay for his defence. The news has half
killed Selina."

"I said she was a Welshwoman," interrupted Charlotte Pain. "She was
smoking, was she not, Margery?"

"She's smoking a filthy short pipe," wrathfully returned Margery. "But
for that, I should have said she was a decent body--although it's next
to impossible to understand her tongue. She puts in ten words of Welsh
to two of English. Of course they have no money to furnish for it; it
wouldn't be them, if they had; so they are wanting to get it out of me.
Fifteen or twenty pounds! My word! They'd like me to end my days in the
workhouse."

"You might turn a deaf ear, Margery," said George.

"I know I might; and many a hundred times have I vowed I would,"
returned Margery. "But there's she in her bed, poor thing, sobbing and
moaning, and asking if Nick is to be quite abandoned. The worse a lad
turns out, the more a mother clings to him--as it seems to me. Let me be
here, or let me be at Ashlydyat, I have no peace for their wants. By
word of mouth or by letter they are on at me for ever."

"If 'Nick' has a father, why can he not supply him?" asked Charlotte.

"It's a sensible question, Miss Pain," said the woman. "Nick's father is
one of those stinging-nettles that only encumber the world, doing no
good for themselves nor for anybody else. 'Minister' Bray, indeed! it
ought to be something else, I think. Many a one has had cause to rue the
hour that he 'ministered' for them!"

"How does he minister?--what do you mean?" wondered Charlotte.

"He marries folks; that's his ne'er-do-well occupation, Miss Pain. Give
him a five-shilling piece, and he'd marry a boy to his grandmother. I'm
Scotch by birth--though it's not much that I have lived in the
land--but, I do say, that to suffer such laws to stand good, is a sin
and a shame. Two foolish children--and many of those that go to him are
no better--stand before him for a half-minute, and he pronounces them to
be man and wife! And man and wife they are, and must remain so, till the
grave takes one of them: whatever their repentance may be when they wake
up from their folly. It's just one of the blights upon bonny Scotland."

Margery, with no ceremonious leave-taking, turned at the last words, and
continued her way. George Godolphin smiled at the blank expression
displayed on Charlotte Pain's countenance. Had Margery talked in Welsh,
as did the old woman with the pipe, she could not have less understood
her.

"You require the key, Charlotte," said he. "Shall I give it to you?
Margery was my mother's maid, as you may have heard. Her sister, Selina,
was maid to the present Lady Godolphin: not of late years: long and long
before she ever knew my father. It appears the girl, Selina, was a
favourite with her mistress; but she left her, in spite of opposition
from all quarters, to marry Mr. Sandy Bray. And has, there's no doubt,
been rueing it ever since. There are several children, of an age now to
be out in the world; but you heard Margery's account of them. I fear
they do pull unconscionably at poor Margery's purse-strings."

"Why does she let them do so?" asked Charlotte.

Mr. George opened his penknife and ran the point of it through his
cigar, ere he answered. "Margery has a soft place in her heart. As I
believe most of us have--if our friends could but give us credit for
it."

"How strange the two sisters should live, the one with your father's
first wife, the other with his second!" exclaimed Charlotte, when she
had given a few moments to thought. "Were they acquainted with each
other?--the ladies."

"Not in the least. They never saw each other. I believe it was through
these women being sisters that my father became acquainted with the
present Lady Godolphin. He was in Scotland with Janet, visiting my
mother's family; and Margery, who was with them, brought Janet to that
very house, there, to see her sister. Mrs. Campbell--as she was,
then--happened to have gone there that day: and that's how the whole
thing arose. People say there's a fatality in all things. One would
think it must be so. Until that day, Mrs. Campbell had not been in the
house for two or three years, and would not be likely to go into it
again for two or three more."

"Is Bray a _mauvais sujet_?"

George lifted his eyebrows. "I don't know that there's much against him,
except his incorrigible laziness: that's bad enough when a man has
children to keep. Work he will not. Beyond the odds and ends that he
gets by the exercise of what he is pleased to call his trade, the fellow
earns nothing. Lady Godolphin is charitable to the wife; and poor
Margery, as she says, finds her purse drawn at both ends."

"I wondered why Margery came to Scotland," observed Charlotte, "not
being Lady Godolphin's maid. What _is_ Margery's capacity in your
family? I have never been able to find out."

"It might puzzle herself to tell you what it is, now. After my mother's
death, she waited on my sisters: but when they left Ashlydyat, Margery
declined to follow them. She would not leave Sir George. She is
excessively attached to him, almost as much so as she was to my mother.
That quitting Ashlydyat, ourselves first, and then my father, was a blow
to Margery," George added in a dreamy tone. "She has never been the same
since."

"It was Margery, was it not, who attended upon Sir George in his long
illness?"

"I do not know what he would have done without her," spoke George
Godolphin in a tone that betrayed its own gratitude. "In sickness she is
invaluable: certainly not to be replaced, where she is attached. Lady
Godolphin, though in her heart I do not fancy she likes Margery,
respects her for her worth."

"I cannot say I like her," said Charlotte Pain. "Her manners are too
independent. I have heard her order you about very cavalierly."

"And you will hear her again," said George Godolphin. "She exercised
great authority over us when we were children, and she looks upon us as
children still. Her years have grown with ours, and there is always the
same distance as to age between us. I speak of the younger amongst us:
to Thomas and Janet she is ever the respectful servant; in a measure
also to Bessy: of myself and Cecil she considers herself partial
mistress."

"If they are so poor as to drain Margery of her money, how is it they
can live in that house and pay its rent?" inquired Charlotte, looking
towards the building.

"It is Bray's own. The land, belonging to it, has been mortgaged three
deep long ago. He might have been in a tolerably good position, had he
chosen to make the most of his chances: he was not born a peasant."

"Who is this?" exclaimed Charlotte.

A tall, slouching man, with red hair and heavy shoulders, was advancing
towards them from the house. George turned to look.

"That is Bray himself. Look at the lazy fellow! You may tell his
temperament from his gait."

George Godolphin was right. The man was not walking along, but
sauntering; turning to either side and bending his head as if flowers
lay in his path and he wished to look at them: his hands in his pockets,
his appearance anything but fresh and neat. They watched him come up. He
touched his hat then, and accosted Mr. George Godolphin.

"My service to ye, sir. I didna know you were in these parts."

"So you are still in the land of the living, Bray!" was Mr. George's
response. "How is business?"

"Dull as a dyke," returned Bray. "Times are bad. I've hardly took a
crown in the last three months, sir. I shall have to emigrate, if this
is to go on."

"I fear you would scarcely find another country so tolerant to your
peculiar calling, Bray," said George, some mockery in his tone. "And
what would the neighbourhood do without you? It must resign itself to
single blessedness."

"The neighbourhood dunna come to me. Folk go over to the kirk now: that
has come into fashion; and I'm going down. 'Twas different in past
times. A man would give a ten-pun note then to have things done neatly
and quietly. But there's fresh notions and fresh havers; and, for all
the good they have done me, I might as well be out of the world. Is this
Miss Cecil?"

The last question was put abruptly, the man turning himself full upon
Charlotte Pain, and scanning her face. George Godolphin was surprised
out of an answer: had he taken a moment for reflection, he might have
deemed the question an impertinence, and passed it by.

"Miss Cecilia is not in Scotland."

"I thought it might be her," said the man; "for Miss Cecil's looks are a
country's talk, and I have heard much of them. I see now; there's nought
of the Godolphin _there_. But it's a bonny face, young lady: and I dare
say there's those that are finding it so."

He shambled on, with a gesture of the hand by way of salutation.
Charlotte Pain did not dislike the implied compliment. "How can this man
marry people?" she exclaimed. "He is no priest."

"He can, and he does marry them; and is not interfered with, or
forbidden," said George Godolphin. "At least, he did do so. By his own
account, his patronage seems to be on the decline."

"Did he marry them openly?"

"Well--no; I conclude not. If people found it convenient to marry
openly, they would not go to him. And why they should go to him at all,
puzzles me, and always has: for, the sort of marriage that he performs
can be performed by any one wearing a coat, in Scotland, or by the
couple themselves. But he has acquired a name, 'Minister Bray;' and a
great deal lies in a name for ladies' ears."

"Ladies!" cried Charlotte scornfully. "Only the peasants went to him, I
am sure."

"Others have gone as well as peasants. Bray boasts yet of a fifty-pound
note, once put into his hand for pronouncing the benediction. It is a
ceremony that we are given to be lavish upon," added George, laughing.
"I have heard of money being grudged for a funeral, but I never did for
a wedding."

"Were I compelled to be a resident of this place, I should get married
myself, out of sheer ennui, or do something else as desperate," she
exclaimed.

"You find it dull?"

"It has been more tolerable since you came," she frankly avowed.

George raised his hat, and his blue eyes shot a glance into hers. "Thank
you, Charlotte."

"Why were you so long in coming? Do you know what I had done? I had
written a letter to desire Mrs. Verrall to recall me. Another week of it
would have turned me melancholy. Your advent was better than nobody's."

"Thank you again, mademoiselle. When I promise----"

"Promise," she warmly interrupted. "I have learnt what your promises are
worth. Oh, but, George, tell me--What was it that you and Lady Godolphin
were saying yesterday? It was about Ethel Grame. I only caught a word
here and there."

"Thomas wishes Lady Godolphin would invite Ethel here for the remainder
of their stay. He thinks Ethel would be all the better for a change,
after being mured up in that fever-tainted house. But, don't talk of it.
It was only a little private negotiation that Thomas was endeavouring to
carry out upon his own account. He wrote to me, and he wrote to my lady.
Ethel knows nothing of it."

"And what does Lady Godolphin say?"

George drew in his lips. "She says No. As I expected. And I believe she
is for once sorry to say it, for pretty Ethel is a favourite of hers.
But she retains her dread of the fever. Her argument is, that, although
Ethel has escaped it in her own person, she might possibly bring it here
in her boxes."

"Stuff!" cried Charlotte Pain. "Sarah Anne might do so; but I do not see
how Ethel could. I wonder Thomas does not marry, and have done with it!
He is old enough."

"And Ethel young enough. It will not be delayed long now. The vexatious
question, concerning residence, must be settled in some way."

"What residence? What is vexatious about it?" quickly asked Charlotte,
curiously.

"There is some vexation about it, in some way or other," returned George
with indifference, not choosing to speak more openly. "It is not my
affair; it lies between Thomas and Sir George. When Thomas comes here
next week----"

"Is Thomas coming next week?" she interrupted.

"That is the present plan. And I return."

She threw her flashing eyes at him. They said--well, they said a good
deal: perhaps Mr. George could read it. "You had better get another
letter of recall written, Charlotte," he resumed in a tone which might
be taken for jest or earnest, "and give me the honour of your escort."

"How you talk!" returned she peevishly. "As if Lady Godolphin would
allow me to go all that way under _your_ escort! As if I would go
myself!"

"You might have a less safe one, Charlotte mia," cried Mr. George
somewhat saucily. "No lion should come near you, to eat you up."

"George," resumed Charlotte, after a pause, "I wish you would tell me
whether Mrs. Verrall---- Good Heavens! what's that?"

Sounds of distress were sounding in their ears. They turned hastily.
Maria Hastings, her camp-stool overturned, her sketching materials
scattered on the ground, was flying towards them, calling upon George
Godolphin to save her. There was no mistaking that she was in a state of
intense terror.

Charlotte Pain wondered if she had gone mad. She could see nothing to
alarm her. George Godolphin cast his rapid glance to the spot where she
had sat, and could see nothing, either. He hastened to meet her, and
caught her in his arms, into which she literally threw herself.

Entwined round her left wrist was a small snake, or reptile of the
species, more than a foot long. It looked like an eel, writhing there.
Maria had never come into personal contact with anything of the sort:
but she remembered what had been said of the deadly bite of a serpent;
and terror completely overmastered her.

He seized it and flung it from her; he laid her poor terrified face upon
his breast, that she might there sob out her fear; he cast a greedy
glance at her wrist, where the thing had been: and his own face had
turned white with emotion.

"My darling, there is no injury," he soothingly whispered. "Be calm! be
calm!" And, utterly regardless of the presence of Charlotte Pain, he
laid his cheek against hers, as if to reassure her, and kept it there.

Less regardless, possibly, had he seen Charlotte Pain's countenance. It
was dark as night. The scales were rudely torn from her eyes: and she
saw, in that moment, how fallacious had been her own hopes touching
George Godolphin.




CHAPTER IX.

MR. SANDY'S "TRADE."


"What ever is the matter?"

The interruption came from Lady Godolphin. Charlotte Pain had perceived
her approach, but had ungraciously refrained from intimating it to her
companions. My lady, a coquettish white bonnet shading her delicate
face, and her little person enveloped in a purple velvet mantle trimmed
with ermine, was on her way to pay a visit to her ex-maid, Selina. She
surveyed the group with intense astonishment. Maria Hastings, white,
sobbing, clinging to George Godolphin in unmistakable terror; Mr. George
soothing her in rather a marked manner; and Charlotte Pain, erect,
haughty, her arms folded, her head drawn up, giving no assistance, her
countenance about as pleasant as a demon's my lady had once the pleasure
of seeing at the play. She called out the above words before she was
well up with them.

George Godolphin did not release Maria; he simply lifted his head. "She
has been very much terrified, Lady Godolphin; but no harm is done. A
reptile of the snake species fastened itself on her wrist. I have flung
it off."

He glanced towards the spot where stood Lady Godolphin, as much as to
imply that he had flung the offender _there_. My lady shrieked, caught
up her petticoats, we won't say how high, and leaped away nimbly.

"I never heard of such a thing!" she exclaimed. "A snake! What should
bring snakes about, here?"

"Say a serpent!" broke from the pale lips of Charlotte Pain.

Lady Godolphin did not detect the irony, and felt really alarmed. Maria,
growing calmer, and perhaps feeling half ashamed of the emotion which
fear had caused her to display, drew away from George Godolphin. He
would not suffer that, and made her take his arm. "I am sorry to have
alarmed you all so much," she said. "Indeed, I could not help it, Lady
Godolphin."

"A serpent in the grass!" repeated her ladyship, unable to get over the
surprise. "How did it come to you, Maria? Were you lying down?"

"I was sitting on the camp-stool, there; busy with my drawing," she
answered. "My left hand was hanging down, touching, I believe, the
grass. I began to feel something cold at my wrist, but at first did not
notice it. Then I lifted it and saw that dreadful thing wound round it.
I could not shake it off. Oh, Lady Godolphin! I felt--I hardly know how
I felt--almost as if I should have died, had there been no one near to
run to."

Lady Godolphin, her skirts still lifted, the tips of her toes touching
the path gingerly, to which they had now hastened, and her eyes alert,
lest the serpent should come trailing forth from any unexpected
direction, remarked that it was a mercy Maria had escaped with only
fright. "You seem to experience enough of that," she said. "Don't faint,
child."

Maria's lips parted with a sickly smile, which she meant should be a
brave one. She was both timid and excitable; and, if terror did attack
her, she felt it in no common degree. What would have been but a passing
fear to another, forgotten almost as soon as felt, was to her agony.
Remarkably susceptible, was she, to the extreme of pleasure and the
extreme of pain. "There is no fear of my fainting," she answered to Lady
Godolphin. "I never fainted in my life."

"I am on my road to see an old servant who lives in that house," said
Lady Godolphin, pointing to the tenement, little thinking how far it had
formed their theme of discourse. "You shall come with me and rest, and
have some water."

"Yes, that is the best thing to be done," said George Godolphin. "I'll
take you there, Maria, and then I'll have a hunt after the beast. I
ought to have killed him at the time."

Lady Godolphin walked on, Charlotte Pain at her side. Charlotte's lip
was curling.

The house door, to which they were bound, stood open. Across its lower
portion, as if to prevent the exit of children, was a board, formerly
placed there for that express purpose. The children were grown now and
scattered, but the board remained; the inmates stepping over it at their
will. Sandy Bray, who must have skulked back to his home by some unseen
circuit, made a rush to the board at sight of Lady Godolphin, and pulled
it out of its grooves, leaving the entrance clear. But for his intense
idleness, he, knowing she was coming, would have removed it earlier.

They entered upon a large room, half sitting-room, half kitchen, its
boarded floor very clean. The old Welshwoman, a cleanly, well-mannered,
honest-faced old woman, was busy knitting then, and came forward,
curtseying: no vestige of pipe to be seen or smelt. "Selina was in bed,"
Bray said, standing humbly before Lady Godolphin. "Selina had heard bad
news of one of the brats, and had worried herself sick over it, as my
lady knew it was in the stupid nature of Selina to do. Would my lady be
pleased to step up to see her?"

Yes; my lady would be pleased to do so by-and-by. But at present she
directed a glass of water to be brought to Miss Hastings. Bray brought
the water in a cracked yellow cup.

"Eh, but there is some of them things about here," he said, when the
cause of alarm was mentioned. "I think there must be a nest of 'em. They
are harmless, so far as I know."

"Why don't you find the nest?" asked Mr. George Godolphin.

"And what good, if I did find 'em, sir?" said he.

"Kill the lot," responded George.

He strode out of the house, Bray following in his wake, to look for the
reptile which had caused the alarm. Bray was sure nothing would come of
it: the thing had had time to get clear away.

In point of fact, nothing did come of it. George Godolphin could not
decide upon the precise spot where they had stood when he threw away the
reptile; and, to beat over the whole field, which was extensive, would
have been endless work. He examined carefully the spot where Maria had
sat, both he and Bray, but could see no trace of anything alarming.
Gathering up her treasures, including the camp-stool, he set off with
them. Bray made a feeble show of offering to bear the stool. "No," said
George, "I'll carry it myself: it would be too much trouble for you."

Charlotte Pain stood at the door, watching as they approached, her rich
cheek glowing, her eye flashing. Never had she looked more beautiful,
and she bent her sweetest smile upon Mr. George, who had the camp-stool
swinging on his back. Lady Godolphin had gone up to the invalid. Maria,
quite herself again, came forward.

"No luck," said George. "I meant to have secured the fellow and put him
under a glass case as a memento: but he has been too cunning. Here's
your sketch, Maria; undamaged. And here are the other rattletraps."

She bent over the drawing quite fondly. "I am glad I had finished it,"
she said. "I can do the filling-in later. I should not have had courage
to sit in that place again."

"Well, old lady," cried George in his free-and-easy manner, as he stood
by the Welshwoman, and looked down at her nimble fingers, "so you have
come all the way from Wales on foot, I hear! You put some of us to
shame."

She looked up and smiled pleasantly. She understood English better than
she could speak it.

"Not on foot all the way," she managed to explain. "On foot to the great
steamer, and then on foot again after the steamer landed her in
Scotland. Not less than a hundred miles of land, taking both ways
together."

"Oh, I see!" said George, perceiving that Margery had taken up a wrong
impression. "But you must have been a good time doing that?"

"She had the time before her," she answered, more by signs than words,
"and her legs were used to the roads. In her husband's lifetime she had
oftentimes accompanied him on foot to different parts of England, when
he went there with his droves of cattle. It was in those journeys that
she learnt to talk English."

George laughed at her idea of talking English. "Did you learn the use of
the pipe also in the journeys, old lady?"

She certainly had; for she nodded fifty times in answer, and looked
delighted at his divination. "But she was obliged to put up with cheap
tobacco now," she said: "and had a trouble to get that!"

George pulled out a supply of Turkey from some hidden receptacle of his
coat. "Did she like that sort?"

She looked at it with the eye of a connoisseur, touched it, smelt it,
and finally tasted it. "Ah, yes! that was good; very good; too good for
her."

"Not a bit of it," said George. "It's yours, old lady. There! It will
keep your pipe going, on the road home."

When fully convinced that he meant it in earnest, she seized his hand,
shook it heartily, and plunged into a Welsh oration. It was cut short in
the midst. She caught sight of Bray, coming in at the house door, and
smuggled the present out of sight amidst her petticoats. Had Mr. Sandy
seen it, she might have derived little benefit from it herself.

Time lagged, while they waited for Lady Godolphin. The conversation fell
upon Bray's trade--as the man was wont to call it: though who or what
led to the topic none of them could remember. He recounted two or three
interesting incidents; one, of a gentleman marrying a young wife and
being shot dead the next day by her friends. She was an heiress, and
they had run away from Ireland. But that occurred years and years ago,
he added. Would the ladies like to see the room?

He opened a door at the back of the kitchen, traversed a passage, and
entered a small place, which could only be called a room by courtesy.
They followed, wonderingly. The walls were whitewashed, the floor was of
brick, and the small skylight, by which it was lighted, was of thick
coarse glass, embellished with green nobs. What with the lowering sky,
and this lowering window, the room wore an appearance of the gloomiest
twilight. No furniture was in it, except a table (or something that
served for one) covered with a green baize cloth, on which lay a book.
The contrast from the kitchen, bright with its fire, with the appliances
of household life, to this strange comfortless place made them shiver.
"A fit place for the noose to be tied in!" cried irreverent George,
surveying it critically.

Bray took the words literally. "Yes," said he. "It's kept for that
purpose alone. It is a bit out of the common, and that pleases the
women. If I said the words in my kitchen, it might not be so satisfying
to them, ye see. It does not take two minutes to do," he added, taking
his stand behind the table and opening the book. "I wish I had as many
pieces of gold as I have done it, here, in my time."

Charlotte Pain took up the words defiantly. "It is impossible that such
a marriage can stand. It is not a marriage."

"'Deed, but it is, young lady."

"It cannot be legal," she haughtily rejoined. "If it stands good for
this loose-lawed country, it cannot do so for others."

"Ay, how about that?" interrupted George, still in his light tone of
ridicule. "Would it hold good in England?"

Minister Bray craned his long neck towards them, over the table, where
they stood in a group. He took the hand of George Godolphin, and that of
Charlotte Pain, and put them to together. "Ye have but to say, 'I take
you, young lady, to be my lawful wife;' and, 'I take you, sir, to be my
husband,' in your right names. I'd then pronounce ye man and wife, and
say the blessing on it; and the deed would be done, and hold good all
over the world."

Did Mr. Sandy Bray anticipate that he might thus extemporise an
impromptu ceremony, which should bring some grist to his empty mill? Not
improbably: for he did not release their hands, but kept them joined
together, looking at both in silence.

George Godolphin was the first to draw his hand away. Charlotte had only
stared with wondering eyes, and she now burst into a laugh of ridicule.
"Thank you for your information," said Mr. George. "There's no knowing,
Bray, but I may call your services into requisition some time."

"Where are you?" came the soft voice of Lady Godolphin down the passage.
"We must all hurry home: it is going to rain. Charlotte, are you there?
Where have you all gone to? Charlotte, I say?"

Charlotte hastened out. Lady Godolphin took her arm at once, and walked
with a quick step through the kitchen into the open air, nodding adieu
to the old Welshwoman. My lady herself, her ermine, her velvets,
possibly her delicately-bloomed complexion, all shrank from the violence
of a storm. Storms, neither of life nor of weather, had ever come too
near Lady Godolphin. She glanced upward at the threatening and angry
sky, and urged Charlotte on.

"Can you walk fast? So lovely a morning as it was!"

"Here comes one of the servants," exclaimed Charlotte. "With umbrellas,
no doubt. How he runs!"

My lady lifted her eyes. Advancing towards them with fleet foot, as if
he were running for a wager, came a man in the Godolphin livery. If
umbrellas had been the object of his coming, he must have dropped them
on his way, for his arms swung beside him, and his hands were empty.

"My lady," cried the man, almost as much out of breath as Lady
Godolphin: "Sir George is taken ill."

My lady stopped then. "Ill!" she repeated. "Ill in what way?"

"Margery has just found him lying on the floor of his room, my lady. We
have got him on to the bed, but he appears to be quite insensible.
Andrew has gone to the doctor."

"Hasten to the house there, and acquaint Mr. George Godolphin," said my
lady, pointing to Bray's.

But Charlotte had already gone on the errand. She left Lady Godolphin's
arm and started back with all speed, calling out that she would inform
Mr. George Godolphin. My lady, on her part, had sped on in the direction
of Broomhead, with a fleeter foot than before.

Leaving the man standing where he was. "Which of the two am I to follow,
I wonder?" he soliloquized. "I suppose I had better keep up with my
lady."

When Charlotte Pain had left Mr. Sandy Bray's match-making room, at my
lady's call, George Godolphin turned with a rapid, impulsive motion to
Maria Hastings, caught her hand, and drew her beside him, as he stood
before Bray. "Maria, she will fetter me in spite of myself!" he said in
a hoarse whisper. "Let me put it out of her power."

Maria looked at him inquiringly. Well she might!

"Be mine now; here," he rapidly continued, bending his face so that she
alone might hear. "I swear that I never will presume upon the act, until
it can be more legally solemnized. But it will bind us to each other
beyond the power of man or woman to set aside."

Maria turned red, pale, any colour that you will, and quietly drew her
hand from that of Mr. George Godolphin. "I do not quite know whether you
are in earnest or in jest, George. You will allow me to infer the
latter."

Quiet as were the words, calm as was the manner, there was that about
her which unmistakably showed Mr. George Godolphin that he might not
venture further to forget himself; if, indeed, he had not been in jest.
Maria, a true gentlewoman at heart, professed to assume that he had
been.

"I beg your pardon," he murmured. "Nay, let me make my peace, Maria."
And he took her hand again, and held it in his. Minister Bray leaned
towards them with an earnest face. Resigning the hope of doing any
little stroke of business on his own account, he sought to obtain some
information on a different subject.

"Sir, would ye be pleased to tell me a trifle about your criminal laws,
over the border? One of my ne'er-do-weels has been getting into trouble
there, and they may make him smart for it."

George Godolphin knew that he alluded to the ill-starred Nick. "What are
the circumstances?" he asked. "I will tell you what I can."

Sandy entered upon the story. They stood before him, absorbed in it, for
Maria also listened with interest, when an exclamation caused them to
turn. Maria drew her hand from George Godolphin's with a quick gesture.
There stood Charlotte Pain.

Stood with a white face, and a flashing, haughty eye. "We are coming
instantly," said George. "We shall catch you up." For he thought she had
reappeared to remind them.

"It is well," she answered. "And it may be as well to haste, Mr. George
Godolphin, if you would see your father alive."

"What?" he answered. But Charlotte had turned again and was gone like
the wind. With all his speed, he could not catch her up until they had
left the house some distance behind them.




CHAPTER X.

THE SHADOW.


In the heart of the town of Prior's Ash was situated the banking-house
of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin. Built at the corner of a street, it
faced two ways. The bank and its doors were in High Street, the
principal street of the town; the entrance to the dwelling-house was in
Crosse Street, a new, short street, not much frequented, which had been
called after Mr. Crosse, who, at the time it was made, lived at the
bank. There were only six or eight houses in Crosse Street; detached
private dwellings; and the street led to the open country, and to a
pathway, not a carriage-way, that would, if you liked to follow it, take
you to Ashlydyat.

The house attached to the bank was commodious: its rooms were large and
handsome, though few in number. A pillared entrance, gained by steps,
led into a small hall. On the right of this hall was the room used as a
dining-room, a light and spacious apartment, its large window opening on
to a covered terrace, where plants were kept; and that again opened to a
sloping lawn, surrounded with shrubs and flowers. This room was hung
with fine old pictures, brought from Ashlydyat. Lady Godolphin did not
care for pictures; she preferred delicately-papered walls; and very few
of the Ashlydyat paintings had been removed to the Folly. On the left of
the hall were the rooms belonging to the bank. At the back of the hall,
beyond the dining-room, a handsome well-staircase led to the apartments
above, one of which was a fine drawing-room. From the upper windows at
the back of the house a view of Lady Godolphin's Folly might be
obtained, rising high and picturesque; also of the turret of Ashlydyat,
grey and grim. Not of Ashlydyat itself: its surrounding trees concealed
it.

This dining-room, elegant and airy, and fitted up with exquisite taste,
was the favourite sitting-room of the Miss Godolphins. The drawing-room
above, larger and grander, less comfortable, and looking on to the High
Street, was less used by them. In this lower room there sat one evening
Thomas Godolphin and his eldest sister. It was about a month subsequent
to that day, at the commencement of this history, when you saw the
hounds throw off, and a week or ten days since Sir George Godolphin had
been found insensible on the floor of his room at Broomhead. The attack
had proved to be nothing but a prolonged fainting-fit; but even that
told upon Sir George in his shattered health. It had caused plans to be
somewhat changed. Thomas Godolphin's visit to Scotland had been
postponed, for Sir George was not strong enough for business
consultations, which would have been the chief object of his journey;
and George Godolphin had not yet returned to Prior's Ash.

Thomas and Miss Godolphin had been dining alone. Bessy was spending the
evening at All Souls' Rectory: she and Mr. Hastings were active workers
together in parish matters; and Cecil was dining at Ashlydyat. Mrs.
Verrall had called in the afternoon and carried her off. Dessert was on
the table, but Thomas had turned from it, and was sitting over the fire.
Miss Godolphin sat opposite to him, nearer the table, her fingers busy
with her knitting, on which fell the rays of the chandelier. They were
discussing plans earnestly and gravely.

"No, Thomas, it would not do," she was saying. "

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