CHAPTER IV.
CHARLOTTE PAIN’S “TURN-OUT.”
A stylish vehicle, high enough for a fire-escape, its green wheels picked out with gleaming red; was dashing up the streets of Prior’s Ash. A lady was seated in it, driving its pair of blood-horses, whose restive mettle appeared more fitted for a man’s guidance than a woman’s. You need not be told that it was Charlotte Pain; no one else of her sex in Prior’s Ash would have driven such a turn-out. Prior’s Ash, rather at a loss what name to give it, for the like of it had never been seen in that sober place, christened it “Mrs. Pain’s turn-out:” so, if you grumble at the appellation, you must grumble at them, not at me.
Past the Bank it flew; when, as if a sudden thought appeared to take the driver, it suddenly whirled round, to the imminent danger of the street in general, retraced its steps past the Bank, dashed round the corner of Crosse Street, and drew up at the entrance to Mr. George Godolphin’s. The servant sprang from the seat behind.
“Inquire if Mrs. George Godolphin is within.”
Mrs. George Godolphin was within, and Charlotte entered. Across the hall, up the handsome staircase lined with paintings, to the still more handsome drawing-room, swept she, conducted by a servant. Margery looked out at an opposite door, as Charlotte entered that of the drawing-room, her curious eyes taking in at a glance Charlotte’s attire. Charlotte wore a handsome mauve brocaded skirt, trailing the ground at the very least half a yard behind her, and a close habit of mauve velvet. A black hat with a turned-up brim, and a profusion of mauve feathers, adorned her head, and a little bit of gauze, mauve-coloured also, came half-way down her face, fitting tightly round the nose and cheeks. At that period, this style of dress was very uncommon.
Margery retired with a sniff. Had it been any one she approved, any especial friend of her mistress, she would have invited her into her mistress’s presence, to the little boudoir, where Maria was seated. A pretty boudoir, tastefully furnished. The bedroom, dressing-room, and this boudoir communicated with each other. Being who it was, Margery allowed the drawing-room the honour of receiving the visitor.
Maria sat at a table, her drawing materials before her. Miss Meta, perched in a high chair, was accommodated with a pencil and paper opposite. “It’s Mrs. Pain in a mask,” was Margery’s salutation.
Maria laid down her pencil. “Mrs. Pain in a mask!” she echoed.
“It looks like nothing else, ma’am,” responded Margery. “I never saw Christian folks make themselves into such spectacles before. It’s to be hoped she won’t go in that guise to call at Ashlydyat: Miss Janet would be sending for the mad doctor.”
Maria smiled. “You never admire Mrs. Pain’s style of dress, Margery.”
“It’s not taking,” rejoined Margery. “Honest faces would as soon see themselves standing out from a brass pan, as with one of them brazen hats stuck upon them.”
Apart from her prejudices against Mrs. Pain—whatever those prejudices might be—it was evident that Margery did not admire the fashionable head-gear. Maria moved to the door, and Miss Meta scrambled off her chair to follow her. “Meta go too, mamma.”
Margery caught the child up as if she were snatching her from a fiery furnace, smothered her in her arms, and whispered unheard-of visions of immediate cakes and sweetmeats, that were to be had by ascending to the nursery, and bore her away in triumph. Did she fear there was contamination for the child in Mrs. Pain’s hat?
Maria, not having observed the bit of by-play, proceeded to the presence of Charlotte. Not a greater contrast had there been between them in those old days at Broomhead, than there was now. Maria was the same quiet, essentially lady-like girl as of yore: she looked but a girl still, in her pretty muslin dress. Charlotte was standing at the window, watching her restless horses, which the servant was driving about in the front street, but could scarcely manage. She put back her hand to Maria.
“How are you to-day; Mrs. George Godolphin? Excuse my apparent rudeness: I am looking at my horses. If the man cannot keep them within bounds, I must go down myself.”
Maria took her place by the side of Charlotte. The horses looked terrific animals in her eyes, very much inclined to kick the carriage to pieces and to bolt into the Bank afterwards. “Did you drive them here?”
“Nobody else can drive them,” replied Charlotte with a laugh. “I should like to seduce Kate behind them some day when she is at Prior’s Ash: she would be in a fit with fright before we were home again.”
“How can you risk your own life, Mrs. Pain?”
“My life! that is a good joke,” said Charlotte. “If I could not manage the horses, I should not drive them. Did you notice the one I was riding yesterday, when you met me with your husband—a party of us together?”
“Not particularly,” replied Maria. “It was just at the turn of the road, you know. I think I looked chiefly at George.”
“You ought to have noticed my horse. You must see him another time. He is the most splendid animal; down from London only the previous day. I rode him yesterday for the first time.”
“I should not detect any of his beauties; I scarcely know one horse from another,” acknowledged Maria.
“Ah! You are not particularly observant,” returned Charlotte in good-humoured sarcasm. “The horse was a present to me. He cost a hundred and thirty guineas. Those animals below are getting quieter now.”
She withdrew from the window, sitting down on a sofa. Maria took a seat near her. “We had been to see Mrs. Averil yesterday when we met you,” observed Maria. “She is still a great sufferer.”
“So Lord Averil told me,” answered Charlotte. “He dined at the Folly yesterday.”
“Did he? George did not mention that Lord Averil was of the party. Did you dine with them?”
“Not I,” answered Charlotte. “It was bore enough to have them in the drawing-room afterwards. Only a few of them came in. As to your husband, I never set eyes upon him at all.”
“He came home early. I think his head ached. He——”
“Oh, he did come home, then!” interrupted Charlotte.
Maria looked surprised. “Of course he came home. Why should he not?”
“How should I know why?” was Charlotte’s answer. “This house has the bother of it to-night, I hear. It is nothing but a bother, a gentleman’s dinner-party!”
“It is a sort of business party to-night, I believe,” observed Maria.
“Verrall is coming. He told me so. Do you know how Mr. Godolphin is?”
“He seems as well as usual. He has come to-day, and I saw him for a minute. George told me that he did not appear at dinner yesterday. Margery——”
A commotion in the street. Charlotte flew to one of the windows, opened it, and stretched herself out. But she could not see the carriage, which was then in Crosse Street. A mob was collecting and shouting.
“I suppose I had better go. That stupid man never can keep horses in good humour, if they have any spirit. Good-bye, Mrs. George Godolphin.”
She ran down to the hall door, giving no time for a servant to show her out. Maria proceeded to her boudoir, which looked into Crosse Street, to see whether anything was the matter.
Something might have been, but that George Godolphin, hearing the outcry, had flown out to the aid of the servant. The man, in his fear—he was a timid man with horses, and it was a wonder Charlotte kept him—had got out of the carriage. George leaped into it, took the reins and the whip, and succeeded in restoring the horses to what Charlotte called good humour. Maria’s heart beat when she saw her husband there: she, like the man, was timid. George, however, alighted unharmed, and stood talking with Charlotte. He was without his hat. Then he handed Charlotte in, and stood looking up and talking to her again, the seat being about a mile above his head. Charlotte, at any rate, had no fear; she nodded a final adieu to George, and drove away at a fast pace, George gazing after her.
Intimate as George Godolphin was with Charlotte Pain, no such thought as that of attributing it to a wrong motive ever occurred to Maria. She had been jealous of Charlotte Pain in the old days, when she was Maria Hastings, dreading that George might choose her for his wife: but with their marriage all such feeling ceased. Maria was an English gentlewoman in the best sense of the term; of a refined, retiring nature, simple and modest of speech, innocent of heart: to associate harm now with her husband and Charlotte, was a thing next to impossible for her to glance at. Unbiased by others, she would never be likely to glance at it. She did not like Charlotte: where tastes and qualities are as opposed as they were in her and Charlotte Pain, mutual preference is not easy; but, to suspect any greater cause for dislike, was foreign to Maria’s nature. Had Maria even received a hint that the fine saddle-horse, boasted of by Charlotte as worthy of Maria’s especial observation, and costing a hundred and thirty guineas, was a present from her husband, she would have attached no motive to the gift, but that of kindness; given him no worse word than a hint at extravagance. Maria could almost as soon have disbelieved in herself, as have disbelieved in the cardinal virtues of George Godolphin.
It was the day of one of George’s dinner-parties: as Charlotte has announced for our information. Fourteen were expected to sit down, inclusive of himself and his brother. Most of them county men; men who did business with the Bank; Mr. Verrall and Lord Averil being two of them: but Mr. Verrall did not do business with the Bank, and was not looked upon as a county man. It was not Maria’s custom to appear at all at these parties; she did not imitate Charlotte Pain in playing the hostess afterwards in the drawing-room. Sometimes Maria would spend these evenings out: at Ashlydyat, or at the Rectory: sometimes, as was her intention on this evening, she would remain in her pretty boudoir, leaving the house at liberty. She had been busy at her drawing all day, and had not quitted it to stir abroad.
Mr. George had stirred abroad. Mr. George had taken a late afternoon ride with Charlotte Pain. He came home barely in time to dress. The Bank was closed for the day: the clerks had all gone, except one, the old cashier, Mr. Hurde. He sometimes stayed later than the rest.
“Any private letters for me?” inquired George, hastening into the office, whip in hand, and devouring the letter-rack with eager eyes, where the unopened letters were usually placed.
The cashier, a tall man once, but stooping now, with silver spectacles and white whiskers, stretched up his head to look also. “There’s one, sir,” he cried, before George had quite crossed the office.
George made a grab at the letter. It stuck in the rack, and he gave forth an impatient word. A blank look of disappointment came over his face, when he saw the direction.
“This is not for me. This is for Mr. Hastings. Who sorted the letters?”
“Mr. Hastings, I believe, sir, as usual.”
“What made him put his own letter into the rack?” muttered George to himself. He went about the office; went into the private room and searched his own table. No, there was no letter for him. Mr. Hurde remembered that Mr. George Godolphin had been put out in the morning by not receiving an expected letter.
George looked at his watch. “There’s no time to go to Verrall’s,” he thought. “And he would be starting to come here by the time I reached the Folly.”
Up to his own room to dress, which was not a long process. He then entered his wife’s boudoir.
“Drawing still, Maria?”
She looked up with a bright glance. “I have been so industrious! I have been drawing nearly all day. See! I have nearly finished this.”
George stood by the table listlessly, his thoughts preoccupied: not pleasantly preoccupied, either. Presently he began turning over the old sketches in Maria’s portfolio. Maria left her seat, and stood by her husband, her arm round his neck. He was now sitting sideways on a chair.
“I put some of these drawings into the portfolio this morning,” she observed. “I found them in a box in the lumber-room. They had not been disinterred, I do believe, since they came here from the Rectory. Do you remember that one, George?”
He took up the sketch she pointed to. A few moments, and then recollection flashed over him. “It is a scene near Broomhead. That is Bray’s cottage.”
“How glad I am that you recognise it!” she cried gleefully. “It proves that I sketched it faithfully. Do you remember the day I did it, George?”
George could not remember that. “Not particularly,” he answered.
“Oh, George! It was the day when I was frightened by that snake—or whatever it was. You and I and Charlotte Pain were there. We took refuge in Bray’s house.”
“Refuge from the snake?” asked George.
Maria laughed. “Lady Godolphin came up, and said I ought to go there and rest, and take some water. How terribly frightened I was! I can recall it still. Bray wanted to marry us afterwards,” she continued, laughing more heartily.
“Bray would have married me to both you and Charlotte for a crown a-piece,” said George.
“Were you in earnest when you asked me to let him do it?” she dreamily inquired, after a pause, her thoughts cast back to the past.
“I dare say I was, Maria. We do foolish things sometimes. Had you said yes, I should have thought you a silly girl afterwards for your pains.”
“Of course you would. Do you see that old Welshwoman in the doorway?” resumed Maria, pointing to the drawing. “She was a nice old body, in spite of her pipe. I wonder whether she is still alive? Perhaps Margery knows. Margery had a letter from her sister this morning.”
“Had she?” carelessly returned George. “I saw there was a letter for her with the Scotch postmark. Has Bray come to grief yet?”
“I fancy they are always in grief, by the frequent appeals to Margery. Lady Godolphin is kind to the wife. She tells Margery if it were not for my lady, she should starve.”
An arrival was heard as Maria spoke, and George rang the bell. It was answered by Maria’s maid, but George said he wanted the butler. The man appeared.
“Has Mr. Verrall come?”
“No, sir. It is Mr. Godolphin.”
“When Mr. Verrall comes, show him into the Bank parlour, and call me. I wish to see him before he goes into the drawing-room.”
The man departed with his order. George went into the adjoining bedroom. A few minutes, and some one else was heard to come in, and run up the stairs with eager steps. It was followed by an impatient knock at Maria’s door.
It proved to be Isaac Hastings. A fine-looking young man, with a sensible countenance. “Have they gone in to dinner yet, Maria?” he hastily cried.
“No. It is not time. No one has come but Mr. Godolphin.”
“I did such a stupid trick! I——”
“Is it you, Isaac?” interrupted George, returning to the room. “I could not think who it was, rushing up.”
“I wanted to catch you, sir, before you went in to dinner,” replied Isaac, holding out a letter to George. “It came for you this afternoon,” he continued, “and I put it, as I thought, into the rack; and one for myself, which also came, I put into my pocket. Just now I found I had brought yours away, and left mine.”
“Yours is in the rack now,” said George. “I wondered what brought it there.”
He took the letter, glanced at its superscription, and retired to the window to read it. There appeared to be but a very few lines. George read it twice over, and then lifted his flushed face: flushed, as it seemed, with pain—with a perplexed, hopeless sort of expression. Maria could see his face reflected in the glass. She turned to him:
“George, what is it? You have had bad news!”
He crushed the letter in his hand. “Bad news! Nothing of the sort. Why should you think that? It is a business letter that I ought to have had yesterday, though, and I am vexed at the delay.”
He left the room again. Isaac prepared to depart.
“Will you stay and take tea with me, Isaac?” asked Maria. “I have dined. I am expecting Rose.”
“I am taking tea already,” answered Isaac, with a laugh. “I was at Grace’s. We were beginning tea, when I put my hand into my pocket to take out my letter, and found it was George Godolphin’s.”
“You were not in haste to read your own letter,” returned Maria.
“No. I knew who it was from. There was no hurry. I ran all the way from Grace’s here, and now I must run back again. Good-bye, Maria.”
Isaac went away. George was in and out of the room, walking about in a restless manner. Several arrivals had been heard, and Maria felt sure that all the guests, or nearly all, must have arrived. “Why don’t you go to them, George?” she asked.
The hour for dinner struck as she spoke, and George left the room. He did not enter the drawing-room, but went down and spoke to the butler.
“Has Mr. Verrall not come yet?”
“No, sir. Every one else is here.”
George retraced his steps and entered the drawing-room. He was gay George again: handsome George; not a line of perplexity could be traced on his open brow, not a shade of care in his bright blue eye. He shook hands with his guests, offering only a half apology, for his tardiness, and saying that he knew his brother was there to replace him.
Some minutes of busy conversation, and then it flagged: another few minutes of it, and a second flag. Thomas Godolphin whispered to his brother. “George, I should not wait. Mr. Verrall cannot be coming.”
George went quite red with anger, or some other feeling. “Not be coming? Of course he is coming? Nothing is likely to detain him.”
Thomas said no more. But the waiting—— Well, you all know what it is, this awkward waiting for dinner. By-and-by the butler looked into the room. George thought it might be a hint that dinner was spoiling, and he reluctantly gave orders that it should be served.
A knock at the door—a loud knock—resounding through the house. George Godolphin’s face lighted up. “There he is!” he exclaimed. “But it is too bad of him to keep us waiting.”
There he is not, George might have said, could he have seen through the closed door the applicant standing there. It was only Maria’s evening visitor, pretty Rose Hastings.
CHAPTER V.
A REVELATION.
The dinner-table was spacious, consequently the absence of one was conspicuous. Mr. Verrall’s chair was still left for him: he would come yet, George said. No clergyman was present, and Thomas Godolphin said grace. He sat at the foot of the table, opposite to his brother.
“We are thirteen!” exclaimed Sir John Pevans, a young baronet, who had been reared a milksop, and feared consumption for himself. “I don’t much like it. It is the ominous number, you know.”
Some of them laughed. “What is that peculiar superstition?” asked Colonel Max. “I have never been able to understand it.”
“The superstition, is that if thirteen sit down to dinner, one of them is sure to die before the year is out,” replied young Pevans, speaking with great seriousness.
“Why is thirteen not as good a number to sit down as any other?” cried Colonel Max, humouring the baronet. “As good as fourteen, for instance?”
“It’s the odd number, I suppose.”
“The odd number. It’s no more the odd number, Pevans, than any other number’s odd. What do you say to eleven?—what do you say to fifteen?”
“I can’t explain it,” returned Sir John. “I only know that the superstition exists, and that I have noticed, in more instances than one, that it has been borne out. Three or four parties who have sat down thirteen to dinner, have lost one of them before the year has come round. You laugh at me, of course; I have been laughed at before: but suppose you notice it now? We are thirteen of us: see if we are all alive by the end of the year.”
Thomas Godolphin, in his inmost heart, thought it not unlikely that one of them, at any rate, would not be there. Several faces were broad with amusement: the most serious of them was Lord Averil’s.
“You don’t believe in it, Averil!” muttered Colonel Max in surprise, as he gazed at him.
“I!” was the answer. “Certainly not. Why should you ask it?”
“You look so grave over it.”
“I never like to joke, though it be only by a smile, on the subject of death,” replied Lord Averil. “I once received a lesson upon the point, and it will serve me my life.”
“Will your lordship tell us what it was!” interposed Sir John, who had been introduced to Lord Averil to-day for the first time.
“I cannot do so now,” replied Lord Averil. “The subject is not suited to a merry party,” he frankly added. “But it would not help to bear out your superstition, Sir John: you are possibly thinking that it might do so.”
“If I have sat down once thirteen, I have sat down fifty times,” cried Colonel Max, “and we all lived the year out and many a year on to it. You are a sociable fellow to invite out to dinner, Pevans! I fancy Mr. George Godolphin must be thinking so.”
Mr. George Godolphin appeared to be thinking of something that rendered him somewhat distrait. In point of fact, his duties as host were considerably broken by listening to the door. Above the conversation his ear was strained, hoping for the knock that should announce Mr. Verrall. It was of course strange that he neither appeared nor sent an excuse. But no knock seemed to come: and George could only rally his powers, and forget Mr. Verrall.
It was a recherché repast. George Godolphin’s state dinners always were so. No trouble or expense was spared for them. Luxuries, in season and out of season, would be there. The turtle would seem richer at his table than at any other, the venison more delicate; the Moselle of fuller flavour, the sparkling hermitage of rarest vintage.
The evening passed on. Some of the gentlemen were solacing themselves with a cup of coffee, when the butler slipped a note into his master’s hand. “The man waits for an answer, sir,” he whispered. And George glided out of the room, and opened the note.
“Dear Godolphin,
“I am ill and lonely, and have halted here midway in my journey for a night’s rest before going on again, which I must do at six in the morning. Come in for half an hour—there’s a good fellow! I don’t know when we may meet again. The regiment embarks to-morrow; and can’t embark without me. Come at once, or I shall be gone to bed.
“G. St. Aubyn.”
One burning, almost irrepressible desire had hung over George all the evening—that he could run up to Verrall’s and learn the cause of his absence. Mr. Verrall’s absence in itself would not in the least have troubled George; but he had a most urgent reason for wishing to see him: hence his anxiety. To leave his guests to themselves would have been scarcely the thing to do: but this note appeared to afford just the excuse wanted. At any rate, George determined to make it an excuse. The note was dated from the principal inn of the place.
“One of the waiters brought this, I suppose, Pierce?” he said to the butler.
“Yes, sir.”
“My compliments, and I will be with Captain St. Aubyn directly.”
George went into the room again, and drew his brother aside.
“Thomas, you’ll be host for me for half an hour,” he whispered. “St. Aubyn has just sent me an urgent summons to go and see him at the Bell. He was passing through Prior’s Ash, and is forced to halt and lie up: he’s very ill. I’ll soon be back again.”
Away he went. Thomas felt unusually well that evening, and exerted himself for his brother. Once out of the house, George hesitated. Should he dash up to Lady Godolphin’s Folly first, and ease his mind, or should he go first to the Bell? The Bell was very near, but in the opposite direction to Ashlydyat. He turned first to the Bell, and was soon in the presence of Captain St. Aubyn, an old friend, now bound for Malta.
“I am sorry to have sent for you,” exclaimed Captain St. Aubyn, holding out his hand to George. “I hear you have friends this evening.”
“It is just the kindest thing you could have done,” impulsively answered George. “I would have given a five-pound note out of my pocket for a plea to absent myself; and your letter came and afforded it.”
What more he chose to explain was between themselves: it was not much: and in five minutes George was on his way to Lady Godolphin’s Folly. On he strode, his eager feet scarcely touching the ground. He lifted his hat and bared his brow, hot with anxiety, to the night air. It was a very light night, the moon high: and, as George pushed on through the dark grove of the Folly, he saw Charlotte Pain emerging from the same at a little distance, a dark shawl, or mantle, thrown completely over her head and figure, apparently for the purpose of disguise or concealment. Her face was turned for a moment towards the moonlight, and there was no mistaking the features of Charlotte Pain. Then she crouched down, and sped along under the friendly cover of the trees. George hastened to overtake her.
But when he got up with her, as he thought, there was no Charlotte there. There was no any one. Where had she crept to? How had she disappeared? She must have plunged into the trees again. But George was in too much haste then to see Mr. Verrall, to puzzle himself about Charlotte. He crossed to the terrace, and rang the bell.
Were the servants making merry? He had to ring again. A tolerable peal this time. Its echoes might have been heard at Ashlydyat.
“Is Mr. Verrall at home?”
“No, sir. Mrs. Pain is.”
“Mrs. Pain is not,” thought George to himself. But he followed the man to the drawing-room.
To his indescribable astonishment, there sat Charlotte, at work. She was in evening dress, her gown and hair interlaced with jewels. Calmly and quietly sat she, very quietly for her, her King Charley reposing upon a chair at her side, fast asleep. It was next to impossible to fancy, or believe, that she could have been outside a minute or two ago, racing in and out of the trees, as if dodging some one, perhaps himself. And yet, had it been necessary, George thought he could have sworn that the face he saw was the face of Charlotte. So bewildered did he feel, as to be diverted for a moment from the business which had brought him there.
“You may well be surprised!” cried Charlotte, looking at him; and George noticed as she spoke that there was some peculiar expression in her face not usual to it. “To see me at work is one of the world’s wonders. A crochet mat took my fancy to-day in a shop, and I bought it, thinking I would make one like it. Instead of making one, I have managed to unravel the other.”
She pointed to the ground as she spoke. There, half covered by her dress, lay a heap of crinkled cotton; no doubt the unravelled mat. Charlotte was plying her needle again with assiduity, her eyes studying the instructions at her elbow.
“How very quickly you must have come in!” exclaimed George.
“Come in from where?” asked Charlotte.
“As I went up to the door, I saw you stooping near the grove on the left, something dark over your head.”
“You dreamt it,” said Charlotte. “I have not been out.”
“But I certainly did see you,” repeated George. “I could not be mistaken. You—were I fanciful, Charlotte, I should say you were in mischief, and wanted to escape observation. You were stooping under the shade of the trees and running along quickly.”
Charlotte lifted her face and looked at him with wondering eyes. “Are you joking, or are you in earnest?” asked she.
“I never was more in earnest in my life. I could have staked my existence upon its being you.”
“Then I assure you I have not stirred out of this room since I came into it from dinner. What possessed me to try this senseless work, I cannot tell,” she added, flinging it across the floor in a momentary accession of temper. “It has given me a headache, and they brought me some tea.”
“You are looking very poorly,” remarked George.
“Am I? I don’t often have such a headache as this. The pain is here, over my left temple. Bathe it for me, will you, George?”
A handkerchief and some eau-de-Cologne were lying on the table beside her. George gallantly undertook the office: but he could not get over his wonder. “I’ll tell you what, Charlotte. If it was not yourself, it must have been your——”
“It must have been my old blind black dog,” interrupted Charlotte. “He has a habit of creeping about the trees at night. There! I am sure that’s near enough. I don’t believe it was anything or any one.”
“Your double, I was going to say,” persisted George. “I never saw your face if I did not think I saw it then. It proves how mistaken we may be. Where’s Verrall? A pretty trick he played me this evening.”
“What trick?” repeated Charlotte. “Verrall’s gone to London.”
“Gone to London!” shouted George, his tone one of painful dismay. “It cannot be.”
“It is,” said Charlotte. “When I came in from our ride I found Verrall going off by train. He had received a telegraphic message, which took him away.”
“Why did he not call upon me? He knew—he knew—the necessity there was for me to see him. He ought to have come to me.”
“I suppose he was in a hurry to catch the train,” said Charlotte.
“Why did he not send?”
“He did send. I heard him send a verbal message by one of the servants, to the effect that he was summoned unexpectedly to London, and could not, therefore, attend your dinner. How early you have broken up!”
“We have not broken up. I left my guests to see after Verrall. No message was brought to me.”
“Then I will inquire,” began Charlotte, rising. George gently pushed her back.
“It is of little consequence,” he said. “It might have saved me some suspense; but I am glad I got dinner over without knowing it. I must see Verrall.”
Charlotte carried her point, and rang the bell. “If you are glad, George, it is no extenuation for the negligence of the servants. They may be forgetting some message of more importance, if they are left unreproved now.”
But forgotten the message had not been. The servant, it appeared, had misunderstood his master, and carried the message to Ashlydyat, instead of to the Bank.
“How very stupid he must have been!” remarked Charlotte to George, when the explanation was given. “I think some people have only half their share of brains.”
“Charlotte, I must see Verrall. I received a letter this evening from London which I ought to have had yesterday, and it has driven me to my wits’ end.”
“About the old business?” questioned Charlotte.
“Just so. Look here.”
He took the letter from his pocket: the letter brought back to him by Isaac Hastings, and which he had assured Maria had not contained bad news: opened it, and handed it to Charlotte for her perusal. Better, possibly, for Mr. George Godolphin that he had made a bosom friend of his wife than of Charlotte Pain! Better for gentlemen in general, it may be, that they should tell their secrets to their wives than to their wives’ would-be rivals—however comprehensive the fascinations of these latter ladies may be. George, however, had made his own bed, as we all do; and George would have to lie upon it.
“What am I to do, Charlotte?”
Charlotte sat bending over the note, and pressing her forehead. Her look was one of perplexity; perplexity great as George’s.
“It is a dangerous position,” she said at length. “If not averted——”
She came to a dead pause, and their eyes met.
“Ay!” he repeated—”if not averted! Nothing would remain for me but——”
“Hush, George,” said she, laying her hand upon his lips, and then letting it fall upon his fingers, where it remained.
There they sat, it is hard to say how long, their heads together, talking earnestly. Charlotte was in his full confidence. Whatever may have been the nature, the depth of his perplexities, she fathomed them. At length George sprang up with a start.
“I am forgetting everything. I forgot those people were still at home, waiting for me. Charlotte, I must go.”
She rose, put her arm within his, and took a step with him, as if she would herself let him out. Perhaps she was in the habit of letting him out.
“Not there! not that way!” she abruptly said, for George was turning to unclose the shutters of the window. “Come into the next room, and I’ll open that.”
The next room was in darkness. They opened the window, and stood yet a minute within the room, talking anxiously still. Then he left her, and went forth.
He intended to take the lonely road homewards, as being the nearer; that dark, narrow road you may remember to have heard of, where the ash-trees met overhead, and, as report went, a ghost was in the habit of taking walking exercise by night. George had no thought for ghosts just then: he had a “ghost” within him, frightful enough to scare away a whole lane full of the others. Nevertheless, George Godolphin did take a step backward with a start, when, just within the Ash-tree Walk, after passing the turnstile, there came a dismal groan from some dark figure seated on a broken bench.
It was all dark together there. The ash-trees hid the moon; George had just emerged from where her beams shone bright and open; and not at first did he distinguish who was sitting there. But his eyes grew accustomed to the obscurity.
“Thomas!” he cried, in consternation. “Is it you?”
For answer, Thomas Godolphin caught hold of his brother, bent forward, and laid his forehead upon George’s arm, another deep groan breaking from him.
That George Godolphin would rather have been waylaid by a real ghost, than by his brother at that particular time and place, was certain. Better that the whole world should detect any undue anxiety for Mr. Verrall’s companionship just then, than that Thomas Godolphin should do so. At least, George thought so: but conscience makes cowards of us all. Nevertheless, he gave his earnest sympathy to his brother.
“Lean on me, Thomas. Let me support you. How have you been taken ill?”
Another minute, and the paroxysm was past. Thomas wiped the dew from his brow, and George sat down on the narrow bench beside him.
“How came you to be here alone, Thomas? Where is your carriage?”
“I ordered the carriage early, and it came just as you had gone out,” explained Thomas. “Feeling well, I sent it away as I had to wait, saying I would walk home. The pain overtook me just as I reached this spot, and but for the bench I should have fallen. But, George, what brings you here?” was the next very natural question. “You told me you were going to the Bell?”
“So I was; so I did,” said George, speaking volubly. “St. Aubyn I found very poorly; I told him he would be best in bed, and came away. It was a nice night; I felt inclined for a run, so I came up here to ask Verrall what had kept him from dinner. He was sent for to London, it seems, and the stupid servant took his apology to Ashlydyat, instead of to the Bank.”
Thomas Godolphin might well have rejoined, “If Verrall is away, where have you stopped?” But he made no remark.
“Have they all gone?” asked George, alluding to his guests.
“They have all gone. I made it right with them respecting your absence. My being there was almost the same thing: they appeared to regard it so. George, I believe I must have your arm as far as the house. See what an old man I am getting.”
“Will you not rest longer? I am in no hurry, as they have left. What can this pain be, that seems to be attacking you of late?”
“Has it never occurred to you what it may be?” quietly rejoined Thomas.
“No,” replied George. But he noticed that Thomas’s tone was, peculiar, and he began to run over in his own mind all the pharmacopoeia of ailments that flesh is heir to. “It cannot be rheumatism, Thomas?”
“It is something worse than rheumatism,” said Thomas, in his serene, ever-thoughtful way. “A short time, George, and you will be master of Ashlydyat.”
George’s heart seemed to stand still, and then bound onwards in a tumult. The words struck upon every chord of feeling he possessed—struck from more causes than one.
“What do you mean, Thomas? What do you fear may be the matter with you?”
“Do you remember what killed our mother?”
There was a painful pause. “Oh, Thomas!”
“It is so,” said Thomas, quietly.
“I hope you are mistaken! I hope you are mistaken!” reiterated George. “Have you had advice? You must have advice.”
“I have had it. Snow confirms my own suspicions. I desired the truth.”
“Who’s Snow?” returned George, disparagingly. “Go up to London, Thomas; consult the best man there. Or telegraph for one of them to come down to you.”
“For the satisfaction of you all, I may do so,” he replied. “But it cannot benefit me, George.”
“Good Heavens, what a dreadful thing!” returned George, with feeling. “What a blow to fall upon you!”
“You would regard it so, were it to fall upon you; and naturally. You are young, joyous; you have your wife and child. I have none of these attributes: and—if I had them all, we are in the hands of One who knows what is best for us.”
George Godolphin did not feel very joyous just then: had not felt particularly joyous for a long time. Somehow, his own inward care was more palpable to him than this news, sad though it was, imparted by his brother. He lifted his right hand to his temples and kept it there. Thomas suffered his right hand to fall upon George’s left, which rested on his knee. A more holy contact than that imparted by Mrs. Charlotte Pain’s.
“Don’t grieve, George. I am more than resigned. I think of it as a happy change. This world, taken at its best, is full of care: if we seem free from it one year, it only falls upon us more unsparingly the next. It is wisely ordered: were earth made too pleasant for us, we might be wishing that it could be permanently our home.”
Heaven knew that George had enough care upon him. He knew it. But he was not weary of the world. Few do weary of it, whatever may be their care, until they have learned to look for a better.
“In the days gone by, I have felt tempted to wonder why Ethel should have been taken,” resumed Thomas Godolphin. “I see now how merciful was the fiat, George. I have been more thoughtful, more observant, perhaps, than many are; and I have learnt to see, to know, how marvellously all these fiats are fraught with mercy; full of gloom as they may seem to us. It would have been a bitter trial to me to leave her here unprotected; in deep sorrow; perhaps with young children. I scarcely think I could have been reconciled to go; and I know what her grief would have been. All’s for the best.”
Most rare was it for undemonstrative Thomas Godolphin thus to express his hidden sentiments. George never knew him to do so before. Time and place were peculiarly fitted for it: the still, light night, telling of peace; the dark trees around, the blue sky overhead. In these paroxysms of disease, Thomas felt brought almost face to face with death.
“It will be a blow to Janet!” exclaimed George, the thought striking him.
“Thomas! can nothing be done for you?” was the impulsive rejoinder, spoken in all hearty good-feeling.
“Could it be done for my mother, George?”
“I know. But, since then, science has made strides. Diseases, once deemed incurable, yield now to skill and enlightenment. I wish you would go to London!”
“There are some few diseases which bring death with them, in spite of human skill: will bring it to the end of time,” rejoined Thomas Godolphin. “This is one of them.”
“Well, Thomas, you have given me my pill for to-night: and for a great many more nights, and days too. I wish I had not heard it! But that, you will say, is a wish savouring only of selfishness. It is a dreadful affliction for you! Thomas, I must say it—a dreadful affliction.”
“The disease, or the ending, do you mean?” Thomas asked, with a smile.
“Both. But I spoke more particularly of the disease. That in itself is a lingering death, and nothing less.”
“A lingering death is the most favoured death—as I regard it: a sudden death the most unhappy. See what time is given me to ‘set my house in order,’” he added, the sober, pleasant smile deepening. “I must not fail to do it well, must I?”
“And the pain, Thomas; that will be lingering, too.”
“I must bear it.”
He rose as he spoke, and put his arm within his brother’s. George seemed to him then the same powerful protector that he, Thomas, must have seemed to Sir George in that midnight walk at Broomhead. He stood a minute or two, as if gathering strength, and then walked forward, leaning heavily on George. It was the pain, the excessive agony that so unnerved him: a little while, and he would seem in the possession of his usual strength again.
“Ay, George, it will soon be yours. I shall not long keep you out of Ashlydyat. I cannot quite tell how you will manage alone at the Bank when I am gone,” he continued, in a more business tone. “I think of it a great deal. Sometimes I fancy it might be better if you took a staid, sober partner; one middle aged. A thorough man of business. Great confidence has been accorded me, you know, George. I suppose people like my steady habits.”
“They like you for your integrity,” returned George, the words seeming to break from him impulsively. “I shall manage very well, I dare say, when the time comes. I suppose I must settle down to steadiness also; to be more as you have been. I can,” he continued, as if in soliloquy. “I can, and I will.”
“And, George, you will be a good master,” continued Thomas. “Be a kind, considerate master to all who shall then be dependent on you. I have tried to be so: and, now that the end has come, it is, I assure you, a pleasant consciousness to possess—to look back upon. I have a few, very few, poor pensioners who may have been a little the better for me: those I shall take care of, and Janet will sometimes see them. But some of the servants lapse to you with Ashlydyat: I speak of them. Make them comfortable. Most of them are already in years: take care of them when they shall be too old to work.”
“Oh, I’ll do that,” said George. “I expect Janet——”
George’s words died away. They had rounded the ash-trees, and were fronting the Dark Plain. White enough looked the plain that night; but dark was the Shadow on it. Yes, it was there! The dark, portentous, terrific Shadow of Ashlydyat!
They stood still. Perhaps their hearts stood still. Who can know? A man would rather confess to an unholy deed, than acknowledge his belief in a ghostly superstition.
“How dark it is to-night!” broke from George.
In truth, it had never been darker, never more intensely distinct. If, as the popular belief went, the evil to overtake the Godolphins was foreshadowed to be greater or less, according to the darker or lighter hue of the Shadow, then never did such ill fall on the Godolphins, as was to fall now.
“It is black, not dark,” replied Thomas, in answer to George’s remark. “I never saw it so black as it is now. Last night it was comparatively light.”
George turned his gaze quickly upwards to the moon, searching in the aspect of that luminary a solution to the darker shade of to-night. “There’s no difference!” he cried aloud. “The moon was as bright as this, last night, but not brighter. I don’t think it could be brighter. You say the Shadow was there last night, Thomas?”
“Yes. But not so dark as now.”
“But, Thomas! you were ill last night; you could not see it.”
“I came as far as the turnstile here with Lord Averil. He called at Ashlydyat after leaving Lady Godolphin’s Folly. I was better then, and strolled out of the house with him.”
“Did he see the Shadow?”
“I don’t know. It was there; but not very distinct. He did not appear to see it. We were passing quickly, and talking about my illness.”
“Did you give Averil any hint of what your illness may be?” asked George hastily.
“Not an indication of it. Janet, Snow, and you, are my only confidants as yet. Bexley is partially so. Were that Shadow to be seen by Prior’s Ash, and the fact of my illness transpired, people would say that it was a forewarning of my end,” he continued, with a grave smile, as he and George turned to pursue their road to Ashlydyat.
They reached the porch in silence. George shook hands with his brother. “Don’t attempt to come to business to-morrow,” he said. “I will come up in the evening, and see you.”
“Won’t you come in now, George?”
“Not now. Good night, Thomas. I heartily wish you better.”
George turned and retraced his steps, past the ash-trees, past the Dark Plain. Intensely black the Shadow certainly looked: darker even than when he had passed it just before—at least so it appeared to George’s eyes. He halted a moment, quite struck with the sombre hue. “Thomas said it appeared light last night,” he half muttered: “and for him death cannot be much of an evil. Superstitious Janet, daft Margery, would both say that the evil affects me: that I am to bring it!” he added, with a smile of mockery at the words. “Angry enough it certainly looks!”
It did look angry. But George vouchsafed it no further attention. He had too much on his mind to give heed to shadows, even though it were the ominous Shadow of Ashlydyat. George, as he had said to Charlotte Pain, was very nearly at his wits’ end. One of his minor perplexities was, how he should get to London. He had urgent necessity for proceeding in search of Mr. Verrall, and equally urgent was it that the expedition should be kept from Thomas Godolphin. What excuse could he invent for his absence?
Rapidly arranging his plans, he proceeded again to the Bell Inn, held a few minutes’ confidential conversation with Captain St. Aubyn, waking that gentleman out of his first sleep for it—not that he by any means enlightened him as to any trouble that might be running riot in his brain—and then went home. Maria came forward to meet him.
“How is poor Captain St. Aubyn, George? Very ill?”
“Very. How did you know anything about it, Maria?”
“Thomas told me you had been sent for. Thomas came to my sitting-room before he left, after the rest had gone. You have stayed a good while with him.”
“Ay. What should you say if I were to go back and stop the night with him?” asked George, half jokingly.
“Is he so ill as that?”
“And also to accompany him a stage or two on his journey to-morrow morning? He starts at six, and is about as fit to travel as an invalid just out of bed after a month’s illness.”
“Do you really mean that you are going to do all that, George?” she inquired, in surprise.
George nodded. “I do not fancy Thomas will be here to-morrow, Maria. Ask to speak to Isaac when he comes in the morning. Tell him that I shall be home some time in the afternoon, but I have gone out of town a few miles with a sick friend. He can say so if I am particularly inquired for.”
George went to his room. Maria followed him. He was changing his coat and waistcoat, and threw an overcoat upon his arm. Then he looked at his watch.
“What is the time?” asked Maria.
“Twenty minutes past eleven. Good night, my darling.”
She fondly held his face down to hers while he kissed her, giving him—as George had once saucily told her she would—kiss for kiss. There was no shame in it now; only love. “Oh, George, my dearest, mind you come back safe and well to me!” she murmured, tears filling her eyes.
“Don’t I always come back safe and well to you, you foolish child? Take care of yourself, Maria.”
Maria’s hand rested lingeringly in his. Could she have divined that Mr. George’s tender adieux sometimes strayed elsewhere!—that his confidences were given, but not to her! George went out, and the hall door closed upon him.
It was well Maria did not watch him away! Well for her astonishment. Instead of going to the Bell Inn, he turned short round to the left, and took the by-way which led to the railway station, gaining it in time to catch the express train, which passed through Prior’s Ash at midnight for London.
CHAPTER VI.
MR. VERRALL’S CHAMBERS.
In thoroughly handsome chambers towards the west-end of London, fitted up with costly elegance, more in accordance (one would think) with a place consecrated to the refinements of life, than to business, there sat one morning a dark gentleman, of staid and respectable appearance. To look at his clean, smoothly shaven face, his grey hair, his gold-rimmed spectacles, his appearance altogether, every item of which carried respectability with it, you might have trusted the man at a first glance. In point of fact, he was got up to be trusted. A fire was pleasant on those spring mornings, and a large and clear one flamed in the burnished grate. Miniature statues, and other articles possessing, one must suppose, some rare excellence, gave to the room a refined look; and the venerable gentleman (venerable in sober respectability, you must understand, more than from age, for his years were barely fifty) sat enjoying its blaze, and culling choice morsels from the Times. The money article, the price of stock, a large insolvency case, and other news especially acceptable to men of business, were being eagerly read by him.
An architect might have taken a model of these chambers, so artistically were they arranged. A client could pass into any one of the three rooms, and not come out by the same door; he might reach them by the wide, handsome staircase, descend by means of a ladder, and emerge in a back street. Not absolutely a ladder, but a staircase so narrow as almost to deserve the name. It did happen, once in a way, that a gentleman might prefer that means of exit, even if he did not of entrance. These chambers were, not to keep you longer in suspense, the offices of the great bill-discounting firm, Trueworthy and Co.
One peculiar feature in their internal economy was, that no client ever got to see Mr. Trueworthy. He was too great a man to stoop to business in his own proper person. He was taking his pleasure in the East; or he was on a visit to some foreign court, the especial guest of its imperial head; or sojourning with his bosom friend the Duke of Dorsetshire at his shooting-box; or reposing at his own country seat; or ill in bed with gout. From one or other of these contingencies Mr. Trueworthy was invariably invisible. It happened now and then that there was a disturbance in these elegant chambers, caused by some ill-bred and ill-advised gentleman, who persisted in saying that he had been hardly treated—in point of fact, ruined. One or two had, on these occasions, broadly asserted their conviction that there was no Mr. Trueworthy at all: but of course their ravings, whether on the score of their own wrongs, or on the non-existence of that estimable gentleman, whose fashionable movements might have filled a weekly column of the Court Circular, were taken for what they were worth.
In the years gone by—only a very few years, though—the firm had owned another head: at any rate, another name. A young, fair man, who had disdained the exclusiveness adopted by his successor, and deemed himself not too great a mortal to be seen of men. This unfortunate principal had managed his affairs badly. In some way or other he came to grief. Perhaps the blame lay in his youth. Some one was so wicked as to prefer against him a charge of swindling; and ill-natured tongues said it would go hard with him—fifteen years at least. What they meant by the last phrase, they best knew. Like many another charge, it never came to anything. The very hour before he would have been captured, he made his escape, and had never since been seen or heard of. Some surmised that he was dead, some that he was in hiding abroad: only one thing was certain—that into this country he could not again enter.
All that, however, was past and gone. The gentleman, Mr. Brompton, sitting at his ease over his newspaper, his legs stretched out to the blaze, was the confidential manager and head of the office. Half the applicants did not know but that he was its principal: strangers, at first, invariably believed that he was so. A lesser satellite, a clerk, or whatever he might be, sat in an outer room, and bowed in the clients, his bow showing far more deference to this gentleman than to the clients themselves. How could the uninitiated suppose that he was anything less than the principal?
On this morning there went up the broad staircase a gentleman whose remarkably good looks drew the eyes of the passers-by towards him, as he got out of the cab which brought him. The clerk took a hasty step forward to arrest his progress, for the gentleman was crossing the office with a bold step: and all steps might not be admitted to that inner room. The gentleman, however, put up his hand, as if to say, Don’t you know me? and went on. The clerk, who at the first moment had probably not had time to recognize him, threw open the inner door.
“Mr. George Godolphin, sir.”
Mr. George Godolphin strode on. He was evidently not on familiar terms with the gentleman who rose to receive him, for he did not shake hands with him. His tone and manner were courteous.
“Is Mr. Verrall here?”
“He is not here, Mr. Godolphin. I am not sure that he will be here to-day.”
“I must see him,” said George, firmly. “I have followed him to town to see him. You know that he came up yesterday?”
“Yes. I met him last night.”
“I should suppose, as he was sent for unexpectedly—which I hear was the case—that he was sent for on business; and therefore that he would be here to-day,” pursued George.
“I am not sure of it. He left it an open question.”
George looked uncommonly perplexed. “I must see him, and I must be back at Prior’s Ash during business hours to-day. I must catch the eleven down-train if possible.”
“Can I do for you as well as Mr. Verrall?” asked Mr. Brompton, after a pause.
“No, you can’t. Verrall I must see. It is very strange that you don’t know whether he is to be here or not.”
“It happens to-day that I do not know. Mr. Verrall left it last night, I say, an open question.”
“It is the loss of time that I am thinking of,” returned George. “You see if I go down now to his residence, he may have left it to come up here; and we should just miss each other.”
“Very true,” asserted Brompton.
George stood for a moment in thought, and then turned on his heel, and departed. “Do you know whether Mr. Verrall will be up this morning?” he asked of the clerk, as he passed through the outer room.
The clerk shook his head. “I am unable to say, sir.”
George went down to the cab, and entered it. “Where to, sir?” asked the driver, as he closed the door.
“The South-Western Railway.”
As the echo of George’s footsteps died away on the stairs, Mr. Brompton, first slipping the bolt of the door which led into the clerk’s room, opened the door of another room. A double door, thoroughly well padded, deadened all sound between the apartments. It was a larger and more luxurious room still. Two gentlemen were seated in it by a similarly bright fire: though, to look at the face of the one—a young man, whose handkerchief, as it lay carelessly on the table beside him, bore a viscount’s coronet—no one would have thought any fire was needed. His face was glowing, and he was talking in angry excitement, but with a tone and manner somewhat subdued, as if he were in the presence of a master, and dared not put forth his metal. In short, he looked something like a caged lion. Opposite to him, listening with cold, imperturbable courtesy, his face utterly impassive, as it ever was, his eyes calm, his yellow hair in perfect order, his moustache trimmed, his elbows resting on the arms of his chair, and the tips of his fingers meeting, on one of which fingers shone a monster diamond of the purest water, was Mr. Verrall. Early as the hour was, glasses and champagne stood on the table.
Mr. Brompton telegraphed a sign to Mr. Verrall, and he came out, leaving the viscount to waste his anger upon air. The viscount might rely on one thing: that it was just as good to bestow it upon air as upon Mr. Verrall, for all the impression it would make on the latter.
“Godolphin has been here,” said Mr. Brompton, keeping the doors carefully closed.
“He has followed me to town, then! I thought he might do so. It is of no use my seeing him. If he won’t go deeper into the mire, why, the explosion must come.”
“He must go deeper into it,” remarked Mr. Brompton.
“He holds out against it, and words seem wasted on him. Where’s he gone now?”
“Down to your house, I expect. He says he must be back home to-day, but must see you first. I thought you would not care to meet him, so I said I didn’t know whether you’d be here or not.”
Mr. Verrall mused. “Yes, I’ll see him. I can’t deal with him altogether as I do with others. And he has been a lucky card to us.”
Mr. Verrall went back to his viscount, who by that time was striding explosively up and down the room. Mr. Brompton sat down to his paper again, and his interesting news of the Insolvency Court.
In one of the most charming villas on the banks of the Thames, a villa which literally lacked nothing that money could buy, sat Mrs. Verrall at a late breakfast, on that same morning. She jumped up with a little scream at the sight of George Godolphin crossing the velvet lawn.
“What bad news have you come to tell me? Is Charlotte killed? Or is Lady Godolphin’s Folly on fire?”
“Charlotte was well when I left her, and the Folly standing,” replied George, throwing care momentarily to the winds, as he was sure to do in the presence of a pretty woman.
“She will be killed, you know, some day with those horses of hers,” rejoined Mrs. Verrall. “What have you come for, then, at this unexpected hour? When Verrall arrived last night, he said you were giving a dinner at Prior’s Ash.”
“I want to see Verrall. Is he up yet?”
“Up! He was up and away ages before I awoke. He went up early to the office.”
George paused. “I have been to the office, and Mr. Brompton said he did not know whether he would be there to-day at all.”
“Oh, well, I don’t know,” returned Mrs. Verrall, believing she might have made an inconvenient admission. “When he goes up to town, I assume he goes to the office; but he may be bound to the wilds of Siberia for anything I can tell.”
“When do you expect him home?” asked George.
“I did not ask him,” carelessly replied Mrs. Verrall. “It may be to-day, or it may be next month. What will you take for breakfast?”
“I will not take anything,” returned George, holding out his hand to depart.
“But you are not going again in this hasty manner! What sort of a visit do you call this?”
“A hasty one,” replied George. “I must be at Prior’s Ash this afternoon. Any message to Charlotte?”
“Why—yes—I have,” said Mrs. Verrall, with some emphasis. “I was about to despatch a small parcel this very next hour to Charlotte, by post. But—when shall you see her? To-night?”
“I can see her to-night if you wish it.”
“It would oblige me much. The truth is, it is something I ought to have sent yesterday, and I forgot it. Be sure and let her have it to-night.”
Mrs. Verrall rang, and a small packet, no larger than a bulky letter, was brought in. George took it, and was soon being whirled back to London.
He stepped into a cab at the Waterloo Station, telling the man he should have double pay if he drove at double speed: and it conveyed him to Mr. Verrall’s chambers.
George went straight to Mr. Brompton’s room, as before. That gentleman had finished his Times, and was buried deep in a pile of letters. “Is Mr. Verrall in now?” asked George.
“He is here now, Mr. Godolphin. He was here two minutes after you departed: it’s a wonder you did not meet.”
George knew the way to Mr. Verrall’s room, and was allowed to enter. Mr. Verrall, alone then, turned round with a cordial grasp.
“Holloa!” said he. “We somehow missed this morning. How are you?”
“I say, Verrall, how came you to play me such a trick as to go off in that clandestine manner yesterday?” remonstrated George. “You know the uncertainty I was in: that if I did not get what I hoped for, I should be on my beam ends?”
“My dear fellow, I supposed you had got it. Hearing nothing of you all day, I concluded it had come by the morning’s post.”
“It had not come then,” returned George, crustily. In spite of his blind trust in the unbleached good faith of Mr. Verrall, there were moments when a thought would cross him as to whether that gentleman had been playing a double game. This was one of them.
“I had a hasty summons, and was obliged to come away without delay,” explained Mr. Verrall. “I sent you a message.”
“Which I never received,” retorted George. “But the message is not the question. See here! A pretty letter, this, for a man to read. It came by the afternoon post.”
Mr. Verrall took the letter, and digested the contents deliberately; in all probability he had known their substance before. “What do you think of it?” demanded George.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Mr. Verrall.
“It’s ruin,” returned George.
“Unless averted. But it must be averted.”
“How?”
“There is one way, you know,” said Mr. Verrall, after a pause. “I have pointed it out to you already.”
“And I wish your tongue had been blistered, Verrall, before you ever had pointed it out to me!” foamed George. “There!”
Mr. Verrall raised his impassive eyebrows. “You must be aware——”
“Man!” interrupted George, his voice hoarse with emotion, as he grasped Mr. Verrall’s shoulder: “do you know that the temptation, since you suggested it, is ever standing out before me—an ignis fatuus, beckoning me on to it! Though I know that it would prove nothing but a curse to engulf me.”
“Here, George, take this,” said Mr. Verrall, pouring out a large tumbler of sparkling wine, and forcing it upon him. “The worst of you is, that you get so excited over things! and then you are sure to look at them in a wrong light. Just hear me for a moment. The pressure is all at this present moment, is it not? If you can lift it, you will recover yourself fast enough. Has it ever struck you,” Mr. Verrall added, somewhat abruptly, “that your brother is fading?”
Remembering the scene with his brother the previous night, George looked very conscious. He simply nodded an answer.
“With Ashlydyat yours, you would recover yourself almost immediately. There would positively be no risk.”
“No risk!” repeated George, with emphasis.
“I cannot see that there would be any. Everything’s a risk, if you come to that. We are in risk of earthquakes, of a national bankruptcy, of various other calamities: but the risk that would attend the step I suggested to you is really so slight as not to be called a risk. It never can be known: the chances are a hundred thousand to one.”
“But there remains the one,” persisted George.
“To let an exposé come would be an act of madness, at the worst look out: but it is madness and double madness when you may so soon succeed to Ashlydyat.”
“Oblige me by not counting upon that, Verrall,” said George. “I hope, ill as my brother appears to be, that he may live yet.”
“I don’t wish to count upon it,” returned Mr. Verrall. “It is for you to count upon it, not me. Were I in your place, I should not blind my eyes to the palpable fact. Look here: your object is to get out of this mess?”
“You know it is,” said George.