CHAPTER XX.
MRS. BOND’S VISIT.
In the old study at All Souls’ Rectory—if you have not forgotten that modest room—in the midst of almost as much untidiness as used to characterize it when the little Hastingses were in their untidy ages, sat some of them in the summer’s evening. Rose’s drawings and fancy-work lay about; Mrs. Hastings’s more substantial sewing lay about; and a good deal of litter besides out of Reginald’s pocket; not to speak of books belonging to the boys, fishing-tackle, and sundries.
Nothing was being touched, nothing used; it all lay neglected, as Maria Godolphin’s work had done, earlier in the afternoon. Mrs. Hastings sat in a listless attitude, her elbow on the old cloth cover of the table, her face turned to her children. Rose sat at the window; Isaac and Reginald were standing by the mantel-piece; and Grace, her bonnet thrown off on to the floor, her shawl unpinned and partially falling from her shoulders, half sat, half knelt at her mother’s side, her face upturned to her, asking for particulars of the calamity. Grace had come running in only a few minutes ago, eager, anxious, and impulsive.
“Only think the state I have been in!” she cried. “But one servant in the house, and unable to leave baby to get down here! I——”
“What brings you with only one servant?” interrupted Rose.
“Ann’s mother is ill, and I have let her go home until Monday morning. I wish you would not interrupt me with frivolous questions, Rose!” added Grace in her old, quick, sharp manner. “Any other day but Saturday, I would have left baby to Martha, and she might have put off her work, but on Saturdays there’s always so much to do. I had half a mind to come and bring the baby myself. What should I care, if Prior’s Ash did see me carrying him? But, mamma, you don’t tell me—how has this dreadful thing been brought about?”
“I tell you, Grace!” returned Mrs. Hastings. “I should be glad to know, myself.”
“There’s a report going about—Tom picked it up somewhere and brought it home to me—that Mr. George Godolphin had been playing pranks with the Bank’s money,” continued Grace.
“Grace, my dear, were I you I would not repeat such a report,” gravely observed Mrs. Hastings.
Grace shrugged her shoulders. George Godolphin had never been a favourite of hers, and never would be. “It may turn out to be true,” said she.
“Then, my dear, it will be time enough for us to talk of it when it does. You are fortunate, Grace; you had no money there.”
“I’m sure we had,” answered Grace, more bluntly than politely. “We had thirty pounds there. And thirty pounds would be as much of a loss to us as thirty hundred to some.”
“Tom Akeman must be getting on—to keep a banking account!” cried free Reginald.
Grace for a wonder, did not detect the irony: though she knew that Reginald had never liked Mr. Akeman: he had always told Grace she lowered herself by marrying an unknown architect.
“Seven hundred pounds were lodged in the Bank to his account when that chapel-of-ease was begun,” she said, in answer to Reginald’s remark. “He has drawn it all out, for wages and other things, except thirty pounds. And of course, that, if it is lost, will be our loss. Had the Bank stood until next week, there would have been another large sum paid in. Will it go on again, Isaac?”
“You may as well ask questions of a stranger, as ask them of me, Grace,” was her brother Isaac’s answer. “I cannot tell you anything certain.”
“You won’t, you mean,” retorted Grace. “I suppose you clerks may not tell tales out of school. What sum has the Bank gone for, Isaac? That, surely, may be told.”
“Not for any sum,” was Isaac’s answer. “The Bank has not ‘gone’ yet, in that sense. There was a run upon the Bank this morning, and the calls were so great that we had not enough money in the place to satisfy them, and were obliged to cease paying. It is said that the Bank will open again on Monday, when assistance shall have come; that business will be resumed, as usual. Mr. Godolphin himself said so: and he is not one to say a thing unless it has foundation. I know nothing more than that, Grace, whatever you may choose to infer.”
“Do you mean to tell me that there are no suspicions in the Bank that something, more than the public yet knows, is amiss with George Godolphin?” persisted Grace.
Isaac answered lightly and evasively. He was aware that such suspicions were afloat with the clerks. Chiefly led to by that application from the stranger, and his rude and significant charges, made so publicly. Isaac had not been present at that application. It was somewhat curious, perhaps—for a freemasonry runs amidst the clerks of an establishment, and they talk freely one with another—that he never heard of it until after the stoppage of the firm. If he had heard of it, he would certainly have told his father. But whatever suspicions he and his fellow-clerks might be entertaining against George Godolphin, he was not going to speak of them to Grace Akeman.
Grace turned to her mother. “Papa has a thousand pounds or two there, has he not?”
“Ah, child! if that were all!” returned Mrs. Hastings, with a groan.
“Why? What more has he there?” asked Grace, startled by the words and the tone. Rose, startled also, turned round to await the answer.
Mrs. Hastings seemed to hesitate. But only for a moment. “I do not know why I should not tell you,” she said, looking at her daughters. “Isaac and Reginald both know it. He had just lodged there the trust-money belonging to the Chisholms: nine thousand and forty-five pounds.”
A silence fell upon the room. Grace and her sister were too dismayed to speak immediately. Reginald, who had now seated himself astride on a chair, his face and arms over the back of it, set up a soft lugubrious whistle, the tune of some old sea-song, feeling possibly the silence to be uncomfortable. To disclose a little secret, Mr. Reginald was not in the highest of spirits, having been subjected to some hard scolding that day on the part of his father, and some tears on the part of his mother, touching the non-existence of any personal effects. He had arrived at home, for the fourth time since his first departure for sea, baggageless, his luggage consisting exclusively of what he stood up in. Of everything else belonging to him, he was able to give no account whatever. It is rather a common complaint amongst young sailors. And then he was always changing his ships.
“Is papa responsible for it?” The half-frightened question came from Rose.
“Certainly he is,” replied Mrs. Hastings. “If the Bank should not go on, why—we are ruined. As well as those poor children, the Chisholms.”
“Oh, mamma! why did he not draw it out this morning?” cried Grace in a tone of pain. “Tom told me that many people were paid in full.”
“Had he known the state the Bank was in, that there was anything the matter with it, no doubt he would have drawn it out,” returned Mrs. Hastings.
“Did Maria know it was paid in?”
“Yes.”
Grace’s eyes flashed fire. Somehow, she was never inclined to be too considerate to Maria. She never had been from their earliest years. “A dutiful daughter! Not to give her father warning!”
“Maria may not have been able to do it,” observed Mrs. Hastings. “Perhaps she did not know that anything was wrong.”
“Nonsense, mamma!” was Grace’s answer. “We have heard—when a thing like this happens, you know people begin to talk freely, to compare notes, as it were—we have heard that George Godolphin and Maria are owing money all over the town. Maria has not paid her housekeeping bills for ever so long. Of course she must have known what was coming!”
Mrs. Hastings did not dispute the point with Grace. The main fact troubled her too greatly for minor considerations to be very prominent with her yet. She had never found Maria other than a considerate and dutiful daughter: and she must be convinced that she had not been so in this instance, before she could believe it.
“She was afraid of compromising George Godolphin,” continued Grace in a bitter tone. “He has ever been first and foremost with her.”
“She might have given a warning without compromising him,” returned Mrs. Hastings; but, in making the remark, she did not intend to cast any reflection on Maria. “When your papa went to pay the money in, it was after banking hours. Maria was alone, and he told her what he had brought. Had she been aware of anything wrong, she might have given a hint to him, then and there. It need never have been known to George Godolphin—even that your papa had any intention of paying money in.”
“And this was recently?”
“Only a week or two ago.”
Grace pushed her shawl more off her shoulders, and beat her knee up and down as she sat on the low stool. Suddenly she turned to Isaac.
“Had you no suspicion that anything was wrong?”
“Yes, a slight one,” he incautiously answered. “A doubt, though, more than a suspicion.”
Grace took up the admission warmly. “And you could hug the doubt slyly to yourself and never warn your father!” she indignantly uttered. “A fine son you are, Isaac Hastings!”
Isaac was of equable temperament. He did not retort on Grace that he had warned him, but that Mr. Hastings had not acted upon the hint; at least not effectually. “When my father blames me, it will be time enough for you to blame me, Grace,” was all he said in answer. “And—in my opinion—it might be just as well if you waited to hear whether Maria deserves blame, before you cast so much on her.”
“Pshaw!” returned Grace. “The thing speaks for itself.”
Had Grace witnessed the bitter sorrow, the prostration, the uncertainty in which her sister was sunk at that moment, she might have been more charitable in her judgment. Practical and straightforward herself, it would have been as impossible for Grace to remain ignorant of her husband’s affairs, pecuniary or else, as it was for her to believe that Maria Godolphin had remained so. And, if fully convinced that such had indeed been the fact, Grace would have deemed her state of contented ignorance to be little less than a crime. She and Maria were as essentially different as two people can well be. Pity but she could have seen Maria then!
Maria was in her dining-room. She had made a pretence of going down to dinner, not to excite the observation and remarks of the servants: in her excessive sensitiveness she could not bear that they should even see she was in grief. Grace, in her place, might have spoken openly and angrily before the household of the state of affairs. Not so Maria: she buried it all within her.
She could not eat. Toying with this plate and that plate, she knew not how to swallow a morsel or to make pretence of doing so, before the servants, standing by. But it came to an end, that dinner, and Maria was left alone.
She sat on, musing; her brain racked with busy thoughts. To one of the strangely refined organization of Maria Hastings, a blow, such as the one fallen, appeared more terrible even than it was. Of the consequences she as yet knew little, could foresee less; therefore they were not much glanced at by her: but of the disgrace Maria took an exaggerated view. Whether the Bank went on again or not, they seemed to have fallen from their high pedestal; and Maria shrank with a visible shudder at the bare thought of meeting her friends and acquaintances; at the idea of going out to show herself in the town.
Many would not have minded it; some would not have looked upon it in the light of a disgrace at all: minds and feelings, I say, are differently constituted. Take Mrs. Charlotte Pain, for example. Had she enjoyed the honour of being George Godolphin’s wife, she would not have shed a tear, or eaten a meal the less, or abstained by so much as a single day from gladdening the eyes of Prior’s Ash. Walking, riding, or driving, Charlotte would have shown herself as usual.
Pierce came in. And Maria lifted her head with a start, and made a pretence of looking up quite carelessly, lest the man should see how full of trouble she was.
“Here’s that Mrs. Bond at the door, ma’am,” he said. “I can’t get rid of her. She declares that you gave her leave to call, and said that you would see her.”
Maria seemed to grow hot and cold. That the woman had come for her ten-pound note, she felt convinced, induced to it, perhaps, by the misfortune of the day, and—she had it not to give her. Maria would have given a great deal for a ten-pound bank-note then.
“I will see her, Pierce,” she said. “Let her come in.”
Mrs. Bond, civil and sober to-night, came in, curtseying. Maria—ah, that sensitive heart!—felt quite meek and humbled before her; very different from what she would have felt had she had the money to refund. Mrs. Bond asked for it civilly.
“I am sorry that I cannot give it to you to-night,” answered Maria. “I will send it to you in a day or two.”
“You promised, ma’am, that I should have it whenever I axed,” said she.
“I know I did,” replied Maria. “If I had it in the house I would give it you now. You shall have it next week.”
“Can I have it on Monday?” asked Mrs. Bond.
“Yes,” answered Maria. “Shall I send it to you?”
“I’d not give you the trouble,” said Mrs. Bond. “I’ll make bold to step up again and get it, ma’am, on Monday.”
“Very well,” replied Maria. “If Miss Meta was here, she would ask after the parrot.”
“It’s beautiful,” exclaimed Dame Bond. “It’s tail’s like a lovely green plume o’ feathers. But I ain’t got used to its screeching yet. Then I’ll be here on Monday, ma’am, if you please.”
Maria rang the bell, and Pierce escorted her to the door. To return again on Monday.
Maria Godolphin never deemed that she was not safe in making the promise. Thomas Godolphin would be home then, and she could get the note from him.
And she sat on alone, as before; her mind more troubled, her weary head upon her hand.
CHAPTER XXI.
A DREAD FEAR.
Can you picture the sensations of Maria Godolphin during that night? No: not unless it has been your lot to pass through such. She went up to her bedroom at the usual time, not to excite any gossip in the household; she undressed mechanically; she went to bed. It had been much the custom with herself and George to sleep with the blinds up. They liked a light room; and a large gas-lamp in Crosse Street threw its full light in. Now, she lay with her eyes closed: not courting sleep; she knew that there would be no sleep for her, no continuous sleep, for many and many a night to come: now, she turned on her uneasy couch and lay with her eyes open: anything for a change in the monotonous hours. The dressing-table, its large glass, its costly ornaments, stood between the windows; she could trace its outlines, almost the pattern of its white lace drapery over the pink silk. The white window-curtains were looped up with pink; some of the pretty white chairs were finished off with pink beading. A large cheval-glass swung in a corner. On a console of white marble, its frettings of gilt, stood Maria’s Prayer-book and Bible, with “Wilson’s Supper and Sacra Privata:” a book she frequently opened for a few minutes in a morning. A small ornamental bookcase was on the opposite side, containing some choice works culled from the literature of the day. On the table, in the centre of the room, lay a small travelling-desk of George’s, which he had left there when packing his things. All these familiar objects, with others, were perfectly visible to Maria’s eyes; and yet she saw them not. If the thought intruded that this comfortable bedchamber might not much longer be hers, she did not dwell upon it. That phase of the misfortune had scarcely come to her. Her chief sensation was one of shivering cold: that nervous coldness which only those who have experienced intense dread or pain of mind, ever have felt. She shivered inwardly and outwardly—and she said perpetually, “When will the night be gone?” It was only the precursor of worse nights, many of them, in store for her.
Morning dawned at last. Maria watched in the daylight; and lay closing her eyes against the light until it was the usual time for rising. She got up, shivering still, and unrefreshed. Many a one might have slept through the night, just as usual, have risen renovated, have been none the worse, in short, in spirit or in health, for the blow which had fallen. Charlotte Pain might have slept all the better. Il y a des femmes et des femmes.
It was Sunday morning, and the church bells were giving token of it, as it is customary for them to do at eight o’clock. When Maria went down to breakfast, it was nearly nine. The sun was bright, and the breakfast-table, laid with its usual care in the pleasant dining-room, was bright also with its china and silver.
Something else looked bright. And that was Miss Meta. Miss Meta came in, following on her mamma’s steps, and attended by Margery. Very bright in her Sunday attire. An embroidered white frock, its sleeves tied up with blue ribbons, and a blue sash. Careful Margery had put a large white pinafore over the whole, lest the frock should come to grief at breakfast. On Sunday mornings Meta was indulged with a seat at her papa and mamma’s breakfast-table.
The child was a little bit of a gourmande, as it is in the nature of many children at that age to be. She liked nice things very much indeed. Bounding to the breakfast-table, she stood on tiptoe, her chin up, regarding what might be on it. Maria drew her to a chair apart, and sat down with the child on her knee, to take her morning kiss.
“Have you been a good girl, Meta? Have you said your prayers?”
“Yes,” confidently answered Meta to both questions.
“She has said ’em after a fashion,” cried Margery. “It’s not much prayers that’s got out of her on a Sunday morning, except hurried ones. I had to make her say the Lord’s Prayer twice over, she gabbled it so. Her thoughts are fixed on coming down here; afraid breakfast should be eaten, I suppose.”
Maria was in no mood for bestowing admonition. She stroked the child’s fair golden curls fondly, and kissed her pretty lips.
“Where’s papa?” asked Meta.
“He is out, dear. Don’t you remember? Papa went out yesterday. He has not come home yet.”
Meta drew a long face. Papa indulged her more than mamma did, especially in the matter of breakfast. Mamma was apt to say such and such a dainty was not good for Meta: papa helped her to it, whether good for her or not.
Maria put her down. “Place her at the table, Margery. It is cold this morning, is it not?” she added, as Meta was lifted on to a chair.
“Cold!” returned Margery. “Where can your feelings be, ma’am? It’s a hot summer’s day.”
Maria sat down herself to the breakfast-table. Several letters lay before her. On a Sunday morning the letters were brought into the dining-room, and Pierce was in the habit of laying them before his master’s place. To-day, he had laid them before Maria’s.
She took them up. All, except three, were addressed to the firm. Two of these bore George’s private address; the third was for Margery.
“Here is a letter for you, Margery,” she said, putting the others down, that they might be carried into the Bank.
“For me!” returned Margery in surprise. “Are you sure, ma’am?”
Maria handed her the letter, and Margery, searching her pocket for her spectacles, opened it without ceremony, and stood reading it.
“I dare say! what else wouldn’t they like!” was her ejaculatory remark.
“Is it from Scotland, Margery?” asked her mistress.
“It wouldn’t be from nowhere else,” answered Margery in vexation. “I have no other kin to pull and tug at me. They’re going on to Wales, she and her son, and she wants me to meet her on the journey to-morrow, just for an hour’s talk. Some people have consciences! Ride a matter of forty mile, and spend a sight o’ money in doing it!”
“Are you speaking of your sister—Mrs. Bray?”
“More’s the pity, I am,” answered Margery. “Selina was always one of the weak ones, ma’am. She says she has been ill again, feels likely to die, and is going to Wales for some months to his friends, to try if the air will benefit her. She’d be ever grateful for a five-pound note, she adds, not having a penny-piece beyond what will take her to her journey’s end. I wonder how much they have had from me in the whole, if it came to be put down!” wrathfully concluded Margery.
“You can have a day’s holiday, you know, Margery, if you wish to meet her on the journey.”
“I must take time to consider,” shortly answered Margery, who was always considerably put out by these applications. “She has been nothing but a trouble to me, ma’am, ever since she married that ne’er-do-well Bray. Now, Miss Meta! you be a good child, and don’t upset the whole cup of coffee over your pinafore, as you did last Sunday morning!”
The parting admonition was addressed to Meta, in conjunction with a slight shake administered to that young lady, under the pretence of resettling her on her chair. Meta was at once the idol and the torment of Margery’s life. Margery withdrew, and Maria, casting her spiritless eyes on the breakfast-table, took a modest piece of dry toast, and put a morsel into her mouth.
But she found some difficulty in swallowing it. Throat and bread were alike dry. She drew the butter towards her, thinking it might help her to eat the toast. No; no. She could not swallow it any more than the other. The fault did not lie there.
“Would Meta like a nice piece of toast?” she asked.
Meta liked anything that was good in the shape of eatables. She nodded her head several times, by way of answer. And Maria spread the toast and passed it to her.
Breakfast came to an end. Maria took the child on her knee, read her a pretty Bible story, her daily custom after breakfast, talked to her a little, and then sent her to the nursery. She, Maria, sat on alone. She heard the bells ring out for service, but they did not ring for her. Maria Godolphin could no more have shown her face in church that day, than she could have committed some desperately wrong act. Under the disgrace which had fallen upon them, it would have seemed, to her sensitive mind, something like an act of unblushing impudence. She gathered her books around her, and strove to make the best of them alone. Perhaps she had scarcely yet realized the great fact that God can be a comforter in the very darkest affliction. Maria’s experience that way was yet limited.
She had told the servants that she would dine in the middle of the day with the child, as their master was out; and at half-past one she sat down to dinner, and made what pretence she could of eating a little. Better pretence than she had made in the morning, for the servants were present now. She took the wing of a fowl on her plate, and turned it about and managed to eat part of it. Meta made up for her: the young lady partook of the fowl and other things with great relish, showing no sign that her appetite was failing, if her mamma’s was.
Later, she was despatched for a walk with Margery, and Maria was once more alone. She felt to wish to run away from herself: the house seemed too large for her. She wandered from the dining-room to her sitting-room upstairs; from the sitting-room across the vestibule to the drawing-room. She paced its large proportions, her feet sinking into the rich velvet-pile carpet; she glanced at the handsome furniture. But she saw nothing: the sense of her eyes, that day, was buried within her.
She felt indescribably lonely: she felt a sense of desertion. No one called upon her, no one came near her: even her brother Reginald had not been. People were not much in the habit of calling on her on a Sunday; but their absence seemed like neglect, in her deep sorrow. Standing for a minute at one of the windows, and looking out mechanically, she saw Isaac pass.
He looked up, discerned her standing there, and nodded. A sudden impulse prompted Maria to make a sign to him to enter. Her brain was nearly wearied out with incertitude and perplexity. All day, all night, had she been wondering how far the calamity would fall; what would be its limit, what its extent. Isaac might be able to tell her something; at present she was in complete ignorance of everything. He came up the stairs swiftly, and entered. “Alone!” he said, shaking hands with her. “How are you to-day?”
“Pretty well,” answered Maria.
“You were not at church, Maria?”
“No,” she answered. “I did not go this morning.”
A sort of constrained silence ensued. If Maria waited for Isaac to speak of yesterday’s misfortune, she waited in vain. Of all people in the world, he would be least likely to speak of it to George Godolphin’s wife. Maria must do it herself, if she wanted it done.
“Isaac, do you know whether the Bank will be open again to-morrow morning?” she began, in a low tone.
“No, I do not.”
“Do you think it will? I wish you to tell me what you think,” she added in a pointedly earnest tone.
“You should ask your husband for information, Maria. He must be far better able to give it to you than I.”
She remembered that George had told her she need not mention his having left Prior’s Ash until she saw Thomas Godolphin on Monday morning. Therefore she did not reply to Isaac that she could not ask George because he was absent. “Isaac, I wish you to tell me,” she gravely rejoined. “Anything you know, or may think.”
“I really know very little, Maria. Nothing, in fact, for certain. Prior’s Ash is saying that the Bank will not open again. The report is that some message of an unfavourable nature was telegraphed down last night by Mr. Godolphin.”
“Telegraphed to whom?” she asked eagerly.
“To Hurde. I cannot say whether there’s any foundation for it. Old Hurde’s as close as wax. No fear of his spreading it, if it has come; unless it lay in his business to do so. I walked out of church with him, but he did not say a syllable about it to me.”
Maria sat a few minutes in silence. “If the Bank should not go on, Isaac—what then?”
“Why—then, of course it would not go on,” was the very logical answer returned by Mr. Isaac.
“But what would be done, Isaac? How would it end?”
“Well—I suppose there’d be an official winding-up of affairs. Perhaps the Bank might be reopened afterwards on a smaller scale. I don’t know.”
“An official winding-up,” repeated Maria, her sweet face turned earnestly on her brother’s. “Do you mean bankruptcy?”
“Something of that sort.”
A blank pause. “In bankruptcy, everything is sold, is it not? Would these things have to be sold?”—looking round upon the costly furniture.
“Things generally are sold in such a case,” replied Isaac. “I don’t know how it would be in this.”
Evidently there was not much to be got out of Isaac. He either did not know, or he would not. Sitting a few minutes longer, he departed—afraid, possibly, how far Maria’s questions might extend. Not long had he been gone, when boisterous steps were heard leaping up the stairs, and Reginald Hastings—noisy, impetuous Reginald—came in. He threw his arms round Maria, and kissed her heartily. Maria spoke reproachfully.
“At home since yesterday morning, and not have come to see me before!” she exclaimed.
“They wouldn’t let me come yesterday,” bluntly replied Reginald. “They thought you’d be all down in the mouth with this bother, and would not care to see folks. Another thing, I was in hot water with them.”
A faint smile crossed Maria’s lips. She could not remember the time when Reginald had not come home to plunge into hot water with the ruling powers at the Rectory. “What was the matter?” she asked.
“Well, it was the old grievance about my bringing home no traps. Things do melt on a voyage somehow—and what with one outlet and another for your pay, it’s of no use trying to keep square. I left the ship, too, and came back in another. I say, where’s Meta? Gone out? I should have come here as soon as dinner was over, only Rose kept me. I am going to Grace’s to tea. How is George Godolphin? He is out, too?”
“He is well,” replied Maria, passing over the other question. “What stay shall you make at home, Reginald?”
“Not long, if I know it. There’s a fellow in London looking out for a ship for me. I thought to go up and pass for second mate, but I don’t suppose I shall now. It’s as gloomy as ditch-water this time at home. They are all regularly cut up about the business here. Will the Bank go on again, Maria?”
“I don’t know anything about it, Reginald. I wish I did know.”
“I say, Maria,” added the thoughtless fellow, lowering his voice, “there’s no truth, I suppose, in what Prior’s Ash is saying about George Godolphin?”
“What is Prior’s Ash saying?” returned Maria.
“Ugly things,” answered Reginald. “I heard something about—about swindling.”
“About swindling!”
“Swindling, or forgery, or some queer thing of that sort. I wouldn’t listen to it.”
Maria grew cold. “Tell me what you heard, Reginald—as well as you can remember,” she said, her unnatural calmness deceiving Reginald, and cloaking all too well her mental agony.
“Tales are going about that there’s something wrong with George. That he has not been doing things on the square. A bankruptcy’s not much, they say, except to the creditors; it can be got over: but if there’s anything worse—why, the question is, will he get over it?”
Maria’s heart beat on as if it would burst its bounds: her blood was fiercely coursing through her veins. A few moments of struggle, and then she spoke, still with unnatural calmness.
“It is not likely, Reginald, that such a thing could be true.”
“Of course it is not,” said Reginald, with impetuous indignation. “If I had thought it was true, I should not have asked you about it, Maria. Why, that class of people have to stand in a dock and be tried, and get imprisoned, and transported, and all the rest of it! That’s just like Prior’s Ash! If it gets hold of the story to-day that I have come home without my sea-chest, to-morrow it will be saying that I have come home without my head. George Godolphin’s a jolly good fellow, and I hope he’ll turn round on the lot. Many a time he has helped me out of a hole that I didn’t dare tell any one else of; and I wish he may come triumphantly out of this!”
Reginald talked on, but Maria heard him not. An awful fear had been aroused within her. Entire as was her trust in her husband’s honour, improbable as the uncertain accusation was, the terrible fear that something or other might be wrong took possession of her, and turned her heart to sickness.
“I bought Meta a stuffed monkey out there,” continued Reginald, jerking his head to indicate some remote quarter of his travels. “I thought you’d not like me to bring home a live one for her—even if the skipper had allowed it to come in the ship. I came across a stuffed one cheap, and bought it.”
Maria roused herself to smile. “Have you brought it to Prior’s Ash?”
“Well—no,” confessed Reginald, coming down a tone or two. “The fact is, it went with the rest of my things. I’ll get her something better next voyage. And now I’m off, Maria, for Grace’s tea will be ready. Remember me to George Godolphin. I’ll come in and see him to-morrow.”
With a commotion, equal to that he had made in ascending, Reginald clattered down, and Maria saw him and his not too good sailor’s jacket go swaying up the street towards her sister’s. It was the only jacket of any sort Mr. Reginald possessed: and the only one he was likely to possess, until he could learn to keep himself and his clothes in better order.
Maria, with the new fear at her heart—which, strive as she might to thrust it indignantly from her, to ignore it, to reason herself out of it, would continue to be a fear, and a very horrible one—remained alone for the rest of the day. Just before bedtime, Margery came to her.
“I have been turning it over in my mind, ma’am, and have come to the conclusion that it might be as well if I do go to meet my sister. She’s always on the groan, it’s true: but maybe she is bad, and we might never have a chance of seeing each other again. So I think I’ll go.”
“Very well,” said Maria. “Harriet can attend to the child. What time in the morning must you be away, Margery?”
“By half-past six out of here,” answered Margery. “The train goes five minutes before seven. Could you let me have a little money, please, ma’am? I suppose I must give her a pound or two.”
Maria felt startled at the request. How was she to comply with it? “I have no money, Margery,” said she, her heart beating. “At least, I have very little. Too little to be of much use to you.”
“Then that stops it,” returned Margery with her abrupt freedom. “It’s of no good for me to think of going without money.”
“Have you none by you?” asked Maria. “It is a pity you must be away before the Bank opens in the morning.”
Before the Bank opens! Was it spoken in thoughtlessness? Or did she merely mean to indicate the hour of Thomas Godolphin’s arrival?
“What I have by me isn’t much,” said Margery. “A few shillings or so. It might take me there and bring me back again: but Selina will look glum if I don’t give her something.”
In Maria’s purse there remained the sovereign and seven shillings which George had seen there. She gave the sovereign to Margery, who could, if she chose, give it to her sister. Maria suggested that more could be sent to her by post-office order. Margery’s savings, what the Brays had spared of them, and a small legacy left her by her former mistress, Mrs. Godolphin, were in George’s hands. Would she ever see them? It was a question to be solved.
To her bed again to pass another night such as the last. As the last? Had this night been only as the last, it might have been more calmly borne. The coldness, the sleeplessness, the trouble and pain would have been there; but not the sharp agony, the awful dread she scarcely knew of what, arising from the incautious words of Reginald. It is only by comparison that we can form a true estimate of what is bad, what good. Maria Godolphin would have said the night before, that it was impossible for any to be worse than that: now she looked back upon it, and envied it by comparison. There had been the sense of the humiliation, the disgrace arising from an unfortunate commercial crisis in their affairs; but the worse dread which had come to her now was not so much as dreamt of. Shivering as one in mortal coldness, lay Maria, her brain alone burning, her mouth dry, her throat parched. When, oh when would the night be gone!
Far more unrefreshed did she arise this morning than on the previous one. The day was beautiful; the morning hot: but Maria seemed to shiver as with ague. Margery had gone on her journey, and Harriet, a maid who waited on Maria, attended to the child. Of course, with Margery away, Miss Meta ran riot in having her own will. She chose to breakfast with her mamma: and her mamma, who saw no particular objection, was not in spirits to oppose it.
She was seated at the table opposite Maria, revelling in coffee and good things, instead of plain bread and milk. A pretty picture, with her golden hair, her soft face, and her flushed cheeks. She wore a delicate pink frock and a white pinafore, the sleeves tied up with a light mauve-coloured ribbon, and her pretty little hands and arms were never still above the table. In the midst of her own enjoyment it appeared that she found leisure to observe that her mamma was taking nothing.
“Mamma, why don’t you eat some breakfast?”
“I am not hungry, Meta.”
“There’s Uncle Thomas!” she resumed.
Uncle Thomas! At half-past eight? But Meta was right. That was Mr. Godolphin’s voice in the hall, speaking to Pierce. A gleam of something like sunshine darted into Maria’s heart. His early arrival seemed to whisper of a hope that the Bank would be reopened—though Maria could not have told whence she drew the deduction.
She heard him go into the Bank. But, ere many minutes elapsed, he had come out again, and was knocking at the door of the breakfast-room.
“Come in.”
He came in: and a grievous sinking fell upon Maria’s heart as she looked at him. In his pale, sad countenance, bearing too evidently the traces of acute mental suffering, she read a death-blow to her hopes. Rising, she held out her hand, without speaking.
“Uncle Thomas, I’m having breakfast here,” put in a little intruding voice. “I’m having coffee and egg.”
Thomas laid his hand for a moment on the child’s head as he passed her. He took a seat a little away from the table, facing Maria, who turned to him.
“Pierce tells me that George is not here.”
“He went to London on Saturday afternoon,” said Maria. “Did you not see him there?”
“No,” replied Thomas, speaking very gravely.
“He bade me tell you this morning that he had gone—in case he did not see you himself in town.”
“Why has he gone? For what purpose?”
“I do not know,” answered Maria. “That was all he said to me.”
Thomas had his earnest dark-grey eyes fixed upon her. Their expression did not tend to lessen the sickness at Maria’s heart. “What address has he left?”
“He gave me none,” replied Maria. “I inferred from what he seemed to intimate that he would be very soon home again. I can scarcely remember what it was he really did say, his departure was so hurried. I knew nothing of it until he had packed his trunk. He said he was going to town on business, and that I was to tell you so on Monday morning.”
“What trunk did he take?”
“The large one.”
“Then he must be thinking of staying some time.”
It was the thought which had several times occurred to Maria. “The trunk was addressed to the railway terminus in London, I remember,” she said. “He did not take it with him. It was sent up by the night train.”
“Then, in point of fact, you can give me no information about him: except this?”
“No,” she answered, feeling, she could hardly tell why, rather ashamed of having to make the confession. But it was no fault of hers. Thomas Godolphin rose to retire.
“I’m having breakfast with mamma, Uncle Thomas!” persisted the little busy tongue. “Margery’s gone for all day. Perhaps I shall have dinner with mamma.”
“Hush, Meta!” said Maria, speaking in a sadly subdued manner, as if the chatter, intruding upon their seriousness, were more than she could bear. “Thomas, is the Bank going on again? Will it be opened to-day?”
“It will never go on again,” was Thomas Godolphin’s answer: and Maria shrank from the lively pain of the tone in which the words were spoken.
There was a blank pause. Maria became conscious that Thomas had turned, and was looking gravely, it may be said searchingly, at her face.
“You have known nothing, I presume, Maria, of—of the state that affairs were getting into? You were not in George’s confidence?”
She returned the gaze with honest openness, something like wonder shining forth from her soft brown eyes. “I have known nothing,” she answered. “George never spoke to me upon business matters: he never would speak to me upon them.”
No; Thomas felt sure that he had not. He was turning again to leave the room, when Maria, her voice a timid one, a delicate blush rising to her cheeks, asked if she could have some money.
“I have none to give you, Maria.”
“I expect Mrs. Bond here for her ten-pound note. I don’t know what I shall do, unless I can have it to give her. George told me I could have it from you this morning.”
Thomas Godolphin did not understand. Maria explained. About her having taken care of the note, and that George had borrowed it on Saturday. Thomas shook his head. He was very sorry, he said, but he could do nothing in it.
“It is not like an ordinary debt,” Maria ventured to urge. “It was the woman’s own money, intrusted to me for safe keeping on the understanding that she should claim it whenever she pleased. I should be so much obliged to you to let me have it.”
“You do not understand me, Maria. It is no want of will on my part. I have not the money.”
Maria’s colour was gradually receding from her face, leaving in its place something that looked like terror. She would have wished to pour forth question after question—Has all our money gone? Are we quite ruined? Has George done anything very wrong?—but she did not. In her refined sensitiveness she had not the courage to put such questions to Thomas Godolphin: perhaps she had not the courage yet to encounter the probable answers.
Thomas left the room, saying no more. He would not pain her by speaking of the utter ruin which had come upon them, the disgraceful ruin; of the awful trouble looming upon them, in which she must be a sufferer equally with himself; perhaps she the greatest sufferer. Time enough for it. Maria sat down in her place again, a dull mist before her eyes, sorrow in her heart.
“Mamma, I’ve eaten my egg. I want some of that.”
Meta’s finger was stretched towards the ham at the foot of the table. Maria rose mechanically to cut her some. There was no saying this morning, “That is not good for Meta.” Her heart was utterly bowed down beyond resistance, or thought of it. She placed some ham on a plate, cut it into small pieces, and laid it before that eager young lady.
“Mamma, I should like some buttered roll.”
The roll was supplied also. What would not Maria have supplied, if asked for? All these commonplace trifles appeared so pitiably insignificant beside the dreadful trouble come upon them.
“A little more sugar, please, mamma.”
Before any answer could be given to this latter demand, either in word or action, a tremendous summons at the hall-door resounded through the house. Maria shrank from its sound. A fear, she knew not of what, had taken up its abode within her, some strange, undefined dread, connected with her husband.
Her poor heart need not have beaten so; her breath need not have been held, her ears strained to listen. Pierce threw open the dining-room door, and there rushed in a lady, all demonstrative sympathy and eagerness. A lady in a handsome light Cashmere shawl, which spread itself over her dress and nearly covered it, and a straw hat, with an upright scarlet plume.
It was Charlotte Pain. She seized Maria’s hand and impulsively asked what she could do for her. “I knew it would be so!” she volubly exclaimed—“that you’d be looking like a ghost. That’s the worst of you, Mrs. George Godolphin! You let any trifle worry you. The moment I got the letters in this morning, and found how badly things were turning out for your husband, I said to myself, ‘There’ll be Mrs. George in the dumps!’ And I flung this shawl on to cover my toilette, for I was not en grande tenue, and came off to cheer you, and see if I could be of any use.”
Charlotte flung her shawl off as she spoke, ignoring ceremony. She had taken the chair vacated by Thomas Godolphin, and with a dexterous movement of the hands, the shawl fell behind her, disclosing the “toilette.” A washed-out muslin skirt of no particular colour, tumbled, and a little torn; and some strange-looking thing above it, neither jacket nor body, of a bright yellow, the whole dirty and stained.
“You are very kind,” answered Maria, with a shrinking spirit and a voice that faltered. Two points in Mrs. Pain’s words had struck upon her ominously. The mention of the letters, and the hint conveyed in the expression, things turning out “badly” for George. “Have you heard from him?” she continued.
“Heard from him!—how could I?” returned Charlotte. “London letters don’t come in this morning. What should he have to write to me about, either? I have heard from another quarter, and I have heard the rumours in Prior’s Ash.”
“Will you tell me what you have heard?” rejoined Maria.
“Well,” said Charlotte in a friendly tone, as she leaned towards her, “I suppose the docket will be struck to-day—if it is not struck already. The Philistines are down on the house, and mean to declare it bankrupt.”
Maria sat in blank dismay. She understood very little of the details of these business matters. Charlotte was quite at home in such things. “What will be the proceedings?” Maria asked, after a pause. “What do they do?”
“Oh, there’s a world of bother,” returned Charlotte. “It will drive quiet Thomas Godolphin crazy. The books have all to be gone through, and accounts of moneys rendered. The worst is, they’ll come here and note down every individual thing in the house, and then put a man in to see that nothing’s moved. That agreeable item in the business I dare say you may expect this morning.”
Let us give Charlotte her due. She had really come in a sympathizing, friendly spirit to Maria Godolphin, and in no other. It may be, that Charlotte rather despised her for being so simple and childish in the ways of the world, but that was only the more reason why she should help her if she could. Every word of information that Mrs. Pain was giving was as a dagger thrust in Maria’s heart. Charlotte had no suspicion of this. Had a similar calamity happened to herself, she would have discussed it freely with all the world: possessing no extreme sensibility of feeling, she did not understand it in another. For Maria to talk of the misfortune, let its aspect be ever so bad, seemed to Charlotte perfectly natural.
Charlotte leaned closer to Maria, and spoke in a whisper. “Is there anything you’d like to put away?”
“To put away?” repeated Maria, not awake to the drift of the argument.
“Because you had better give it to me at once. Spoons, or plate of any sort, or your own jewellery; any little things that you may want to save. I’ll carry them away under my shawl. Don’t you understand me?” she added, seeing the blank perplexity on Maria’s face. “If once those harpies of men come in, you can’t move or hide a single article, but you might put the whole house away now, if you could get it out.”
“But suppose it were known?” asked Maria.
“Then there’d be a row,” was Charlotte’s candid answer. “Who’s to know it? Look at that greedy little monkey?”
Meaning Miss Meta, who was filling her mouth quickly with the pieces of ham and the buttered roll, seemingly with great relish.
“Is it good, child?” said Charlotte.
For answer, Meta nodded her head, too busy to speak. Maria, as in civility bound, invited her visitor to take some breakfast.
“I don’t care if I do,” said Charlotte. “I was just going to breakfast when I came off to you. Look here, Mrs. George Godolphin, I’ll help myself; you go meanwhile and make up a few parcels for me. Just what you set most value by, you know.”
“I should be afraid,” answered Maria.
“What is there to be afraid of?” asked Charlotte, opening her eyes. “They’ll be safe enough at the Folly. That is Lady Godolphin’s: her private property. The bankruptcy can’t touch that; as it will this place and Ashlydyat. For the matter of that, I’d swear they were mine with all the pleasure in life, if they did get seen.”
“Ashlydyat!” broke from Maria’s lips.
“Ashlydyat will have to go of course, and everything in it. At the same time that those harpies walk in here, another set will walk into Ashlydyat. I should like to see Janet’s face when they arrive! You make haste, and put up all you can. There may be no time to lose.”
“I do not think it would be right,” debated Maria.
“Stuff and nonsense about ‘right!’ such things are done every day. I dare say you have many little valuables that you had rather keep than lose.”
“I have many that it would be a great grief to me to lose.”
“Well, go and put them together. I will take every care of them, and return them to you when the affair has blown over.”
Maria hesitated. To her honourable mind, there appeared to be something like fraud in attempting such a thing. “Will you allow me just to ask Thomas Godolphin if I may do it?” she said.
Charlotte Pain began to think that Maria must be an idiot. “Ask Thomas Godolphin! You would get an answer! Why, Mrs. George, you know what Thomas Godolphin is—with his strait-laced principles! He would cut himself in two, rather than save a button, if it was not legally his to save. I believe that if by the stroke of a pen he could make it appear that Ashlydyat could not be touched, he wouldn’t make the stroke. Were you to go with such a question to Thomas Godolphin, he’d order you, in his brother’s name, not to put aside as much as a ten-and-sixpenny ring. You must do it without the knowledge of Thomas Godolphin.”
“Then I think I would rather not do it,” said Maria. “Thank you all the same, Mrs. Pain.”
Mrs. Pain shrugged her shoulders with a movement of contempt, threw off her hat, and drew her chair to the breakfast-table. Maria poured out some coffee, and helped her to what she chose to take.
“Are you sure—the people you speak of will be in the house to-day?” asked Maria.
“I suppose they will.”
“I wish George would come back?” involuntarily broke from Maria’s lips.
“He’d be a great simpleton if he did,” said Charlotte. “He’s safer where he is.”
“Safer from what?” quickly asked Maria.
“From bother. I should not come if I were George. I should let them fight the battle out without me. Mrs. George Godolphin,” added Charlotte, meaning to be good-natured, “you had better reconsider your resolve and let me save you a few things. Not a stick or stone will be left to you. This will be a dreadful failure, and you won’t be spared. They’ll take every trinket you possess, leaving you nothing but your wedding-ring.”
Maria could not be persuaded. She seemed altogether in a fog, understanding little: but she felt that what Charlotte proposed would not be within the strict rules of right.
“They’ll poke their noses into drawers and boxes, into every hole and corner in the house; and from that time forth the things are not yours, but theirs,” persisted Charlotte, for her information.
“I cannot help it,” sighed Maria. “I wish George was here!” “At any rate, you’ll do one thing,” said Charlotte. “You’ll let me carry off the child for the day. It will not be a pleasant sight for her, young as she is, to witness a lot of great hulking men going through the rooms, marking down the furniture. I’ll take her back with me.”
Maria made no immediate reply. She did not particularly like the companionship of Mrs. Pain for Meta. Charlotte saw her hesitation.
“Are you thinking she will be a trouble? Nothing of the sort. I shall be glad to have her for the day, and it is as well to spare her such sights. I am sure her papa would say so.”
Maria thought he would, and she thought how kind Mrs. Pain was. Charlotte turned to Meta.
“Will Meta come and spend the day at Lady Godolphin’s Folly?—and have a high swing made between the trees, and go out in the carriage in the afternoon, and buy sugar-plums?”
Meta looked dubious, and honoured Mrs. Pain with a full stare in the face. Notwithstanding the swing and the sugar-plums—both very great attractions indeed to Meta—certain reminiscences of her last visit to the Folly were intruding themselves.
“Are the dogs there?” asked she.
Charlotte gave a most decided shake of the head. “The dogs are gone,” she said. “They were naughty dogs to Meta, and they have been shut up in the pit-hole, and can never come out again.”
“Never, never?” inquired Meta, her wide-open eyes as earnest as her tone.
“Never,” said Charlotte. “The great big pit-hole lid’s fastened down with a strong brass chain: a chain as thick as Meta’s arm. It is all right,” added Charlotte in an aside whisper to Maria, while pretending to reach over the breakfast-table for an egg-spoon. “She shan’t as much as hear the dogs. I’ll have them shut up in the stable. We’ll have such a beautiful swing, Meta!”
Meta finished the remainder of her breakfast and slid off her chair. Reassured upon the subject of the dogs, she was eager to be off at once to the pleasures of the swing. Maria rang the bell for Harriet, and gave orders that she should be dressed.
“Let her come in this frock,” said Charlotte. “There’s no knowing what damage it may undergo before the day’s out.”
Meta was taken away by Harriet. Charlotte finished her breakfast, and Maria sat burying her load of care, even from the eyes of friendly Charlotte. “Do you like my Garibaldi shirt?” suddenly asked the latter.
“Like what?” questioned Maria, not catching the name.
“This,” replied Charlotte, indicating the yellow article by a touch. “They are new things just come up: Garibaldi shirts they are called. Mrs. Verrall sent me three down from London: a yellow, a scarlet, and a blue. They are all the rage, she says. Do you admire it?”
But for Maria’s innate politeness, and perhaps for the sadness beating at her heart, she would have answered that she did not admire it at all: that it looked a shapeless, untidy thing. Charlotte continued, without waiting for a reply.
“You don’t see it to advantage. It is soiled, and has lost a button or two. Those dogs make horrid work of my things, with their roughness and their dirty paws. Look at this great rent in my gown which I have pinned up! Pluto did that this morning. He is getting fearfully savage, now he’s old.”
“You must not allow them to frighten Meta,” said Maria somewhat anxiously. “She should not see them.”
“I have told you she shall not. Can’t you trust me? The dogs——”
Charlotte paused. Meta came running in, ready; in her large straw hat with its flapping brim, and her cool brown-holland outdoor dress. Charlotte rose, drew her shawl about her shoulders, and carried her hat to the glass, to settle it on. Then she took Meta by the hand, said good morning, and sailed out; the effect of her visit having been partly to frighten, partly to perplex, Maria.
Maria sat on with her load of care, and her new apprehensions. These agreeable visitors that Charlotte warned her of—she wondered that Thomas had not mentioned it. Would they take all the clothes she had upstairs, leaving her only what she stood upright in? Would they take Meta’s? Would they take her husband’s out of his drawers and places? Would they take the keeper off her finger? It was studded with diamonds. Charlotte had said they would only leave her her wedding-ring. These thoughts were troubling and perplexing her; but only in a degree. Compared with that other terrible thought, they were as nothing—the uncertain fear, regarding her husband, which had been whispered to her by the careless sailor, Reginald Hastings.
CHAPTER XXII.
BEARING THE BRUNT.
Thomas Godolphin sat in the Bank parlour, bearing the brunt of the shock. With his pain upon him, mental and bodily, he was facing all the trouble that George ought to have faced: the murmurs, the questions, the reproaches.
All was known. All was known to Thomas Godolphin. Not alone to him. Could Thomas have kept the terrible facts within his own breast, have shielded his brother’s reputation still, he would have done it: but that was impossible. In becoming known to Mr. Godolphin, it had become known to others. The discovery had been made jointly, by Thomas and by certain business gentlemen, when he was in London on the Saturday afternoon. Treachery upon treachery! The long course of deceit on George Godolphin’s part had come out. Falsified books; wrongly-rendered accounts; good securities replaced by false; false balance-sheets. Had Thomas Godolphin been less blindly trustful in George’s honour and integrity, it could never have been so effectually accomplished. George Godolphin was the acting manager: and Thomas, in his perfect trust, combined with his failing health, had left things latterly almost entirely in George’s hands. “What business had he so to leave them?” People were asking it now. Perhaps Thomas’s own conscience was asking the same. But why should he not have left things to him, considering that he placed in him the most implicit confidence? Surely, no unprejudiced man would say Thomas Godolphin had been guilty of imprudence. George was fully equal to the business confided to him, in point of power and capacity; and it could not certainly matter which of the brothers, equal partners, equal heads of the firm, took its practical management. It would seem not: and yet they were blaming Thomas Godolphin now.
Failures of this nature have been recorded before, where fraud has played its part. We have only to look to the records of our law courts—criminal, bankruptcy, and civil—for examples. To transcribe the precise means by which George Godolphin had contrived to bear on in a course of deceit, to elude the suspicion of the world in general, and the vigilance of his own house, would only be to recapitulate what has often been told in the public records: and told to so much more purpose than I could tell it. It is rather with what may be called the domestic phase of these tragedies that I would deal: the private, home details; the awful wreck of peace, of happiness, caused there. The world knows enough (rather too much, sometimes) of the public part of these affairs; but what does it know of the part behind the curtain?—the, if it may be so said, inner aspect?
I knew a gentleman, years ago, who was partner in a country banking-house: a sleeping partner; and the Bank failed. Failed through a long-continued course of treachery on the part of one connected with it—something like the treachery described to you as pursued by Mr. George Godolphin. This gentleman (of whom I tell you) was to be held responsible for the losses, so the creditors and others decided: the real delinquent having disappeared, escaped beyond their reach. They lavished upon this gentleman harsh names; rogue, thief, swindler, and so on!—while, in point of fact, he was as innocent and unconscious of what had happened as they were. He gave up all he had; the bulk of his fortune had gone with the Bank; and he went out of hearing of his abusers for a while until things should become smoother; perhaps the bad man be caught. A short time, and he became ill; and a medical man was called in to him. Again, a short time, and he was dead: and the doctors said—I heard them say it—that his malady had been brought on by grief; that he had, in fact, died of a broken heart. He was a kindly gentleman; a good husband, a good father, a good neighbour; a single-hearted, honest man; the very soul of honour: but he was misjudged by those who ought to have known him better; and he died for it. I wonder what the real rogue felt when he heard of the death? They were relatives. There are many such cases in the world: where reproach and abuse are levelled at one whose heart is breaking.
There appeared to be little doubt that George Godolphin’s embarrassments had commenced years ago. It is more than probable that the money borrowed from Verrall during that short sojourn in Homburg had been its precursor. Once in the hands of the clever charlatan, the crafty, unscrupulous bill-discounter, who grew fat on the folly of others, his downward course was—perhaps not easy or swift, but at all events certain. If George Godolphin had but been a little more clear-sighted, the evil might never have come. Could he but have seen Verrall at the outset as he was: not the gentleman, the good-hearted man, as George credulously believed, but the low fellow who traded on the needs of others, the designing sharper, looking ever after his prey, George would have flung him off with no other feeling than contempt. George Godolphin was not born a rogue. George was by nature a gentleman, and honest and open; but, once in the clutches of Verrall, he was not able to escape.
Bit by bit, step by step, gradually, imperceptibly, George found himself caught. He awoke to the fact that he could neither stir upwards nor downwards. He could not extricate himself; he could not go on without exposure; Verrall, or Verrall’s agents, those working in concert with him, though not ostensibly, stopped the supplies, and George was in a fix. Then began the frauds upon the Bank. Slightly at first. It was only a choice between that and exposure. Between that and ruin, it may be said, for George’s liabilities were so great, that, if brought to a climax, they must then have caused the Bank to stop, involving Thomas in ruin as well as himself. In his sanguine temperament, too, he was always hoping that some lucky turn would redeem the bad and bring all right again. It was Verrall who urged him on. It was Verrall who, with Machiavellian craft, made the wrong appear right; it was Verrall who had filled his pockets at the expense of George’s. That Verrall had been the arch-tempter, and George the arch-dupe, was clear as the sun at noonday to those who were behind the scenes. Unfortunately but very few were behind the scenes—they might be counted by units—and Verrall and Co. could still blazon it before the world.
The wonder was, where the money had gone to. It very often is the wonder in these cases. A wonder too often never solved. An awful amount of money had gone in some way; the mystery was, in what way. George Godolphin had kept up a large establishment; had been personally extravagant, privately as well as publicly; but that did not serve to account for half the money missing; not for a quarter of it; nay, scarcely for a tithe. Had it been to save himself from hanging, George himself could not have told how or where it had gone. When the awful sum total came to be added up, to stare him in the face, he looked at it in blank amazement. And he had no good to show for it; none; the money had melted, and he could not tell how.
Of course it had gone to the discounters. The tide of discounting once set in, it was something like the nails in the horseshoe, doubling, and doubling, and doubling. The money went, and there was nothing to show for it. Little marvel that George Godolphin stood aghast at the sum total, when the amount was raked up—or, as nearly the amount as could be guessed at. When George could no longer furnish legitimate funds on his own account, the Bank was laid under contribution to supply them, and George had to enter upon a system of ingenuity to conceal the outgoings. When those contributions had been levied to the very utmost extent compatible with the avoidance of sudden and immediate discovery, and George was at his wits’ end for money, which he must have, then Verrall whispered a way which George at first revolted from, but which resulted in taking the deeds of Lord Averil. Had the crash not come as it did, other deeds might have been taken. It is impossible to say. Such a course once entered on is always downhill. Like unto some other downward courses, the only safety lies in not yielding to the first temptation.
Strange to say, George Godolphin could not see the rogue’s part played by Verrall: or at best he saw it but very imperfectly. And yet, not strange; for there are many of these cases in the world. George had been on intimate terms of friendship with Verrall; had been lié, it may be said, with him and Lady Godolphin’s Folly. Mrs. Verrall was pretty. Charlotte had her attractions. Altogether, George believed yet in Verrall. Let the dagger’s point only be concealed with flowers, and men will rush blindly on to it.
Thomas Godolphin sat, some books before him, pondering the one weighty question—where could all the money have gone to? Until the present moment, this morning when he had the books before him, and his thoughts were more practically directed to business details, he had been pondering another weighty question—where had George’s integrity gone to? Whither had flown his pride in his fair name, the honour of the Godolphins? From the Saturday afternoon when the dreadful truth came to light, Thomas had had little else in his thoughts. It was his companion through the Sunday, through the night journey afterwards down to Prior’s Ash. He was more fit for bed than to take that journey: but he must face the exasperated men from whom George had flown.
He was facing them now. People had been coming in since nine o’clock with their reproaches, and Thomas Godolphin bore them patiently and answered them meekly: the tones of his voice low, subdued, as if they came from the sadness of a stricken heart. He felt their wrongs keenly. Could he have paid these injured men by cutting himself to pieces, and satisfied them with the “pound of flesh,” he would have done so, oh how willingly! He would have sacrificed his life and his happiness (his happiness!) and done it cheerfully, if by that means they could have been paid their due.
“It’s nothing but a downright swindle. I’ll say it, sir, to your face, and I can’t help saying it. Here I bring the two thousand pounds in my hand, and I say to Mr. George Godolphin, ‘Will it be safe?’ ‘Yes,’ he answers me, ‘it will be safe.’ And now the Bank has shut up, and where’s my money?”
The speaker was Barnaby, the corn-dealer. What was Thomas Godolphin to answer?
“You told me, sir, on Saturday, that the Bank would open again to-day for business; that customers would be paid in full.”
“I told you but what I believed,” rose the quiet voice of Thomas Godolphin in answer. “Mr. Barnaby, believe me this blow has come upon no one more unexpectedly than it has upon me.”
“Well, sir, I don’t know what may be your mode of carrying on business, but I should be ashamed to conduct mine so as to let ruin come slap upon me, and not have seen it coming.”
Again, what was Thomas Godolphin to answer? Generous to the end, he would not say, “My brother has played us both alike false.” “If I find that any care or caution of mine could have averted this, Mr. Barnaby, I shall carry remorse to my grave,” was all he replied.
“What sort of a dividend will there be?” went on the dealer.
“I really cannot tell you yet, Mr. Barnaby. I have no idea. We must have time to go through the books.”
“Where is Mr. George Godolphin?” resumed the applicant; and it was a very natural question. “Mr. Hurde says he is away, but it is strange that he should be away at such a time as this. I should like to ask him a question or two.”