“What is it, George?”

“Nothing. What? This? Only a note from Thomas.”

He began whistling lightly, to cover his real feelings, and took up the book Maria had closed. “Is it entertaining?” asked he, turning over its pages.

“Very. It is a charming book. But that I had it to read, I should have been lying on the sofa. I have a very bad headache to-night.”

“Go to bed,” responded George.

“I think I must. Perhaps you will not care to come so early?”

“Never mind me. I have an hour or two’s work to do in the Bank to-night.”

“Oh, George!”

“My dear, it need not keep you up.”

“George, I cannot think how it is that you have night-work to do!” she impulsively exclaimed, after a pause. “I am sure Thomas would not wish you to do it. I think I shall ask him.”

George turned round and grasped her shoulder, quite sharply. “Maria!”

His grasp, I say, was sharp, his look and voice were imperatively stern. Maria felt frightened: she scarcely knew why. “What have I done?” she asked, timidly.

“Understand me, please, once for all. What I choose to do, does not regard my brother Thomas. I will have no tales carried to him.”

“Why do you mistake me so?” she answered, when she had a little recovered her surprise. “It cannot be well for you, or pleasant for you, to have so much work to do at night, and I thought Thomas would have told you not to do it. Tales! George, you know I should never tell them of you.”

“No, no; I know you would not, Maria. I have been idle of late, and am getting up my work; that’s all: but it would not do to let Thomas know it. You—you don’t tell Isaac that I sit up at the books?” he cried, almost in an accent of terror.

She looked up at him wonderingly, through her wet eyelashes. “Surely, no! Should I be likely to speak to Isaac of what you do? or to any one?”

George folded her in his arms, kissing the tears from her face. “Go to bed at once, darling, and sleep your headache off,” he fondly whispered. “I shall be up soon; as soon as I can.”

He lighted her candle and gave it to her. As Maria took it, she remembered something she wished to say to him. “When will it be convenient to you to give me some money, George?”

“What for?”

“Oh, you know. For housekeeping. The bills are getting so heavy, and the tradespeople are beginning to ask for their money. The servants want their wages, too. Would it not be better to pay regularly, as we used to do, instead of letting things run on so long?”

“Ay. I’ll see about it,” replied George.

She went upstairs and retired to rest, soon falling asleep. Her head was heavy. The household went to bed; George shut himself into the Bank—according to his recent custom; and the house was soon wrapped in quiet—as a sober house should be.

Two o’clock was striking from All Souls’ clock when Maria awoke. Why should she have done so?—there was no noise to startle her. All she knew—and it is all that a great many of us know—was, that she did awake.

To her astonishment, George was not in bed. Two o’clock!—and he had said that he should soon follow her! A vague feeling of alarm stole over Maria.

All sorts of improbable suggestions crowded on her imagination. Imaginations, you know, are more fantastic in the dark, still night, than in the busy day. Had he been taken ill? Had he fallen asleep at his work? Could he—could he have set the books and himself on fire? Had a crown been offered to Maria, she could not have remained tranquil a moment longer.

Slightly dressing herself, she threw on a warm dressing-gown, and stole down the stairs. Passing through the door that divided the dwelling from the Bank, she softly turned the handle of George’s room, and opened it. Secure in the house being at rest, he had not locked the doors against interruption.

The tables seemed strewed with books, but George was not then occupied with them. He was sitting in a chair apart, buried, as it appeared—in thought, his hands and his head alike drooping listlessly. He started up at Maria’s entrance.

“I grew alarmed, George,” she said, trying to explain her appearance. “I awoke suddenly, and finding you had not come up, I grew frightened, thinking you might be ill. It is two o’clock!”

“What made you come down out of your warm bed?” reiterated George. “You’ll catch your death.”

“I was frightened, I say. Will you not come up now?”

“I am coming directly,” replied George. “Go back at once. You’ll be sure to take cold.”

Maria turned to obey. Somehow the dark passages struck on her with a nervous dread. She shrank into the room again.

“I don’t care to go up alone,” she cried. “I have no light.”

“How foolish!” he exclaimed. “I declare Meta would be braver!”

Some nervous feeling did certainly appear to be upon her, for she burst into tears. George’s tone—a tone of irritation, it had been—was exchanged for one of soothing tenderness, as he bent over her. “What is the matter with you to-night, Maria? I’ll light you up.”

“I don’t know what is the matter with me,” she answered, suppressing her sobs. “I have not felt in good spirits of late. George, sometimes I think you are not well. You are a great deal changed in your manner to me. Have I—have I displeased you in any way?”

“You displeased me! No, my darling.”

“I’ll light you up, Maria,” he repeated. “I shall not be long after you.”

And, taking the heavy lamp from the table, he carried it to the outer passage, and held it while she went up the stairs. Then he returned to the room and to his work—whatever that work might be.

Vain work! vain, delusive, useless work! As you will soon find, Mr. George Godolphin.

Morning came. Whether gnawing care or hopeful joy may lie in the heart’s inner dwelling-place, people generally meet at their breakfast-tables as usual.

George Godolphin sat at breakfast with his wife. Maria was in high spirits: her indisposition of the previous evening had passed away. She was telling George an anecdote of Meta, as she poured out the coffee, some little ruse the young lady had exercised, to come over Margery; and Maria laughed heartily as she told it. George laughed in echo: as merrily as his wife. There must have been two George Godolphins surely at that moment! The outer, presented to the world, gay, smiling, and careless; the inner, kept for his own private and especial delectation, grim, dark, and ghastly.

Breakfast was nearly over, when there was heard a clattering of little feet, the door burst open, and Miss Meta appeared in a triumphant shout of laughter. She had eluded Margery’s vigilance, and eloped from the nursery. Margery speedily followed, scolding loudly, her hands stretched forth to seize the runaway. But Meta had bounded to her papa, and found a refuge.

George caught her up on his knee: his hair—the same shade once, but somewhat darker now—mixing with the light golden locks of the child, as he took from her kiss after kiss. To say that George Godolphin was passionately fond of his child would not be speaking too strongly: few fathers can love a child more ardently than George loved Meta. A pretty little lovable thing she was! Look at her on George’s knee! her dainty white frock, its sleeves tied up with blue, her pretty socks and shoes, her sunny face, surrounded by its shower of curls. Margery scolded in the doorway, but Miss Meta, little heeding, was casting her inquisitive eyes on the breakfast-table, to see what there might be especially nice upon it.

“If you’d just please to punish her once for it, sir, she wouldn’t do it, maybe, in future!” grumbled Margery. “Naughty girl!”

“I think I must,” said George. “Shall I whip you, Meta?”

Meta shouted out a joyous little laugh in answer, turned her face round, and clung to him lovingly. She knew what his “whippings” meant.

“But if Margery says so?”

“Margery nobody,” responded Meta, bustling her face round to the table again. “Mamma, may I have some of that?”

Maria hesitated. “That” was some tempting-looking breakfast-dish, very good, no doubt, for George, but very rich for Meta. George, however, drew it towards him, and cut her a little, claiming for his reward as many kisses as Meta’s impatience would accord him. Margery went off in a temper.

“Into a stronger,” called out George. He as much liked to give a word of teasing now and then to Margery as he had in the old days she referred to. Margery retorted with some answer, which he did not hear, and George laughed. Laughed loud and merrily, and again bent his face to Meta’s.

But he could not remain all day long in that scene of peace. Oh, if we only could! those who have to go out to battle with the daily world. If there were only a means of closing the door on the woes that turn a man’s hair white before its time!

George took Meta a triumphal ride round the room on his shoulder, and then, having extorted his payment, put her down by Maria. Going into the Bank to his day’s work. His day’s work! rather an embarrassing one, that day, Mr. George Godolphin!

Taking the keys of the strong-room from the cupboard, also certain other keys, as he had done once before within the knowledge of the reader, he proceeded to the strong-room, opened a certain safe in it, and took out the box inscribed “Lord Averil.” This he also opened, and examined its contents. Mr. George Godolphin was searching for certain bonds: or, making believe to search for them. Having satisfied himself that they were not there, he returned the box to its place, made all safe again, went back, and sat down to open the morning letters. Presently he called to a clerk.

“Has Mr. Hurde come?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Desire him to step here.”

The old clerk came, in obedience to the summons, taking off his spectacles as he entered to rub one of their glasses, which had got misty. George leaned his elbow on the table, and, resting his chin upon his hand, looked him full in the face.

“Hurde,” said he, plunging midway into his communication, which he made in a lone tone, “those bonds of Lord Averil’s are missing.”

The clerk paused, as if scarcely understanding. “How do you mean, sir? Missing in what way?”

“I can’t find them,” replied George.

“They are in Lord Averil’s box in the strong-room, sir, with his other papers.”

“But they are not there,” replied George. “I have searched the papers through this morning. Hurde, we have had some roguery at work.”

Another pause, devoted by Mr. Hurde to revolving the communication. “Roguery!” he slowly repeated. “Have you missed anything else, Mr. George?”

“No. I have not looked.”

“Oh, sir, there’s no fear of anything being wrong,” resumed the old clerk, his good sense repudiating the notion. “Mr. Godolphin must have moved them.”

“And has Mr. Godolphin not moved them, sir?” demanded the clerk.

“It appears not. He dropped me a line last night, saying I should find the bonds in their place in the box. I suppose Lord Averil was up at Ashlydyat and mentioned it. But I can’t find them in the box.”

“Sir, you know you are not a very good searcher,” observed Mr. Hurde, after some consideration. “Once or twice that you have searched for deeds, Mr. Godolphin has found them afterwards, overlooked by you. Shall I go carefully over the box, sir? I think they must be in it.”

“I tell you, Hurde, they are not.”

He spoke somewhat fractiously. Fully aware that he had occasionally overlooked deeds, in his haste or carelessness, perhaps the contrast between those times and these, gave a sting to his manner. Then, whether the deeds had been found or not, he was innocent: now——

“But, if they are not in the box, where can they be?” resumed Mr. Hurde.

“There it is,” said George. “Where can they be? I say, Hurde, that some light fingers must have been at work.”

Mr. Hurde considered the point in his mind. It seemed that he could not adopt the conclusion readily. “I should think not, sir. If nothing else is missing, I should say certainly not.”

“They are missing, at any rate,” returned George. “It will put Mr. Godolphin out terribly. I wish there had been any means of keeping it from him: but, now that Lord Averil has mentioned the bonds to him, there are none. I shall get the blame. He will think I have not kept the keys securely.”

“But you have, sir, have you not?”

“For all I know I have,” replied George, assuming a carelessness as to the point, of which he had not been guilty. “Allowing that I had not, for argument’s sake, what dishonest person can we have about us, Hurde, who would use the advantage to his own profit?”

Mr. Hurde began calling over the list of clerks, preparatory to considering whether any one of them could be considered in the least degree doubtful. He was engaged in this mental process, when a clerk interrupted them, to say that a gentleman was asking to see Mr. George Godolphin.

“Hurde,” he whispered, catching his arm, “you may as well make the communication to Mr. Godolphin. He ought to know it at once, and I may be engaged some time.”

So George remained shut up, and the old clerk followed Thomas Godolphin to his private room. Mr. Godolphin felt well that morning, and had come unusually early: possibly lest there should be any further blundering over Lord Averil’s bonds. He looked somewhat surprised to see the old clerk approaching him with a long face and mysterious look.

“Do you want me, Hurde?”

“Mr. George has desired me to speak to you, sir, about those bonds of Lord Averil’s. To make an unpleasant communication, in fact. He is engaged himself, just now. He says he can’t find them.”

“They are in the strong-room, in Lord Averil’s case,” replied Mr. Godolphin.

“He says they are not there, sir: that he can’t find them.”

“But they are there,” returned Thomas. “They have not been moved out of the box since they were first placed in it.”

He spoke quietly as he ever did, but very firmly, almost as if he were disputing the point, or had been prepared to dispute it. Mr. Hurde resumed after some deliberation: he was a deliberate man always, both in temperament and in speech.

“What Mr. George says, is this, sir: That when you were in London Lord Averil asked for his bonds. Mr. George looked for them, and found they were not in the box; and he came to the conclusion that you had moved them. The affair escaped his memory, he says, until last night, when he was asked for them again. He has been searching the box this morning, but cannot find the bonds in it.”

“They must be there,” observed Thomas Godolphin. “If George has not moved them, I have not. He has a knack of overlooking things.”

“I said so to him, sir, just now. He——”

“Do you say he is engaged?” interrupted Thomas Godolphin.

“The secretary of the railway company is with him, sir. I suppose he has come about that loan. I think the bonds can’t be anywhere but in the box, sir. I told Mr. George so.”

“Let me know when he is disengaged,” said Thomas Godolphin. And Mr. Hurde went out.

George Godolphin was disengaged then. Mr. Hurde saw the gentleman, whom he had called the railway company’s secretary, departing. The next minute George Godolphin came out of his room.

“Have you mentioned that to my brother?” he asked of Hurde.

“I have, sir. Mr. Godolphin thinks that you must be mistaken.”

George went in to his brother, shook hands, and said he was glad to see him so early. “It is a strange thing about these bonds,” he continued, without giving Thomas time to speak.

“You have overlooked them,” said Thomas. “Bring me the keys, and I will go and get them.”

“I assure you they are not there.”

George Godolphin produced the key of the strong-room, and of the safe, and Lord Averil’s box was examined by Thomas Godolphin. The bonds in question were not in it: and Thomas, had he missed himself, could scarcely have been more completely astonished.

“George, you must have moved them,” were the first words he spoke.

“Not I,” said George, lightly. “Where should I move them to?”

“But no one has power to get into that room, or to penetrate to the safe and the box after it, except you and myself,” urged Mr. Godolphin. “Unless, indeed, you have allowed the keys to stray from your keeping.”

“I have not done that,” answered George. “This seems to be perfectly unaccountable.”

“How came you to tell Averil last night that the bonds had gone to London?”

“Well, the fact is, I did not know what to tell him,” replied George. “When I first missed the bonds, when you were in London——”

“Why did you not let me know then that they were missing?” was the interruption.

“I forgot it when you returned home.”

“But you should not have allowed yourself the possibility of forgetting a thing like that,” remonstrated Thomas. “Upon missing deeds of that value, or in fact of any value however slight, you should have communicated with me the very same hour. George,” he added, after a pause, which George did not break: “I cannot understand how it was that you did not see the necessity of it yourself.”

George Godolphin was running his hand through his hair—in an absent manner, lost in thought; in—as might be conjectured—contemplation of the past time referred to. “How was I to think anything but that you had moved the deeds?” he said.

“At all events, you should have ascertained. Why, George, were I to miss deeds that I believed to be in a given place, I could not rest a night without inquiring after them. I might assume—and there might be every probability for it—that you had moved them; but my sleep would be ruined until I ascertained the fact.”

George made no reply. I wonder where he was wishing himself? Mr. Godolphin resumed.

“In this instance, I do not see how you could have come to the conclusion that I had touched the bonds. Where did you think I was likely to move them to?”

George could not tell—and said so. It was not impossible, but Thomas might have sent them to town—or have handed them back to Lord Averil, he continued to murmur, in a somewhat confused manner. Thomas looked at him: he could scarcely make him out, but supposed the loss had affected his equanimity.

“Had you regarded it dispassionately, George, I think you would have seen it in a more serious light. I should not be likely to move the bonds to a different place of keeping, without your cognizance: and as to returning them to Lord Averil, the transaction would have appeared in the books.”

“I am sorry I forgot to mention it to you,” said George.

“Well, perhaps there may have been; just a casual thought,” acknowledged George. “I can’t be sure.”

“And yet you did not speak to me?”

“In your present state of health, I was willing to spare you unnecessary anxiety——”

“Stay, George. If you really assumed that I had moved the deeds, asking me the question could not have been productive of anxiety. If any fear, such as that the deeds were missing without my agency, only crossed your mind as a suggestion, it was your bounden duty to acquaint me with it.”

“I wish I could have dealt with the matter now without acquainting you,” returned George. “Did not the London doctors warn you that repose of mind was essential to you?”

“George,” was the impressive answer, and Thomas had his hand upon his brother’s arm as he spoke it, “so long as I pretend to transact business, to come to this Bank, and sit here, its master, so long do I desire and request to be considered equal to discharging its duties efficiently. When I can no longer do that, I will withdraw from it. Never again suffer my state of health to be a plea for keeping matters from me, however annoying or complicated they may be.”

Thomas Godolphin spent half that day in looking into other strong boxes, lest perchance the missing deeds should have got into any—though he did not see how that could be. They could not be found; but, neither did any other paper of consequence, so far as could be discovered, appear to have gone. Thomas could not account for the loss in any way, or conjecture why it should have occurred, or who had taken the bonds. It was made known in the Bank that a packet of deeds was missing; but full particulars were not given.

There was no certain data to go upon, as to the time of the loss. George Godolphin stated that he had missed them a month ago; Thomas, when visiting Lord Averil’s box for some purpose about four months ago, had seen the deeds there, secure. They must have disappeared between those periods. The mystery was—how? The clerks could not get to the strong-room and to the safes and cases in it, unless by some strange accident; by some most unaccountable neglect. Very great neglect it would have been, to allow them the opportunity of getting to one key; but to obtain three or four, as was necessary before those deeds could have been taken, and to obtain them undiscovered, was next door to an impossibility. The internal arrangements in the house of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin were of a stringent nature; Sir George Godolphin had been a most particular man in business. Conjecture upon conjecture was hazarded: theory after theory discussed. When Mr. Hurde found the deeds were really gone, his amazement was excessive, his trouble great. George, as soon as he could, stole away from the discussion. He had got over his part, better perhaps than he had expected: all that remained now, was to make the best of the loss—and to institute a search for the deeds.

“Of whom?”

“Of the clerks in the house, sir. But, one of them, it must have been.”

“A stranger it could not have been,” replied Thomas Godolphin. “Had a midnight plunderer got into the Bank, he would not have contented himself with one packet of deeds.”

“Whoever took them, sir, took them to make money upon them. There’s not a doubt of that. I wonder—I wonder——”

“What?” asked Mr. Godolphin.

“I wonder—I have often wondered, sir—whether Layton does not live above his income. If so——”

“Hurde,” said Thomas Godolphin gravely, “I believe Layton to be as honest as you or I.”

“Well—I have always thought him so, or I should pretty soon have spoken. But, sir, the deeds must have gone somehow, by somebody’s hands: and Layton is the least unlikely of all. I see him on a Sunday driving his new wife out in a gig. She plays the piano, too!”

How these items in the domestic economy of the clerk, Layton, could bear upon the loss of the deeds, especially the latter item, Mr. Hurde did not further explain. He was of the old school, seeing no good in gigs, still less in pianos; and he determined to look a little after Mr. Layton.

Thomas Godolphin, straightforward and honourable, imparted to Lord Averil the fact of the deeds being missing. Whether he would have revealed it to a less intimate client at this early stage of the affair, might be a matter of speculation. The house would not yet call them lost, he said to Lord Averil: it trusted, by some fortunate accident, to put its hands upon them, in some remote pigeon-hole. Lord Averil received the communication with courteous friendliness: he thought it must prove that they had only been mislaid, and he hoped they would be found. Both gentlemen hoped that sincerely. The value of the deeds was about sixteen thousand pounds: too much for either of them to lose with equanimity.

“George must have known of this when I asked him for the deeds a month ago,” observed Lord Averil.

“I think not,” replied Thomas Godolphin. “It was your asking for the deeds which caused him to search the box for them, and he then found they were gone.”

“Perhaps you are right. But I remember thinking his manner peculiar.”

“How ‘peculiar’?” inquired Thomas.

“Hesitating: uncertain. He appeared, at first, not to know what I meant in asking for the deeds. Since you spoke to me of the loss, it struck me as accounting for George’s manner—that he did not like to tell me of it.”

“He could not have known of it then,” repeated Thomas Godolphin.

As this concluding part of the conversation took place, they were coming out of the room. Isaac Hastings was passing along the passage, and heard a portion of it.

The old clerk nodded an affirmative. “But you need not proclaim it there,” he added, by way of caution, glancing sideways at the clerks.

“Do you suppose I should do so?” returned Isaac Hastings.

CHAPTER XIII.
A RED-LETTER DAY FOR MRS. BOND.

The scent of the new-mown hay was in the atmosphere around Prior’s Ash. A backward spring it had been until the middle of April, and wiseacres said the crops would be late. But then the weather had suddenly burst into the warmth of summer, vegetation came on all the more rapidly for its previous tardiness, and the crops turned out to be early, instead of late.

Never a more lovely day gladdened the world than that particular day in June. Maria Godolphin, holding Miss Meta by the hand, walked along under the shady field-hedge, all glorious with its clusters of wild roses. The field was covered with hay, now being piled into cocks by the haymakers, and Meta darted ever and anon from her mother’s side, to afford the valuable aid of her tiny hands. Meta would have enjoyed a roll on the hay with the most intense delight; but unfortunately Meta was in the full grandeur of visiting attire; not in simple haymaking undress. Had you asked Meta, she would have told you she had on her “best things.” Things too good to be allowed to come to grief in the hay. Maria soothed the disappointment by a promise for the morrow. Meta should come in her brown holland dress with Margery, and roll about as much as she pleased. Children are easily satisfied, and Meta paced on soberly under the promise, only giving covetous glances at the hay. With all her impulsive gaiety, her laughter and defiance of Margery, she was by nature a most gentle child, easily led.

Maria was on her way to call at Lady Godolphin’s Folly; and thence at Ashlydyat. Maria was not given to making morning calls: she deemed it a very unsatisfactory waste of time. Very pleasant no doubt for gossips, but a hindrance to the serious business of life. She made them now and then; just enough to save her credit, and that was all. Mrs. Pain had honoured Maria with about fifteen visits, and Maria was now going to return them all in one. No one could say Charlotte went in for ceremony; she would run in and out of people’s houses, as the whim took her, every day in the week sometimes, and of Maria’s amidst the rest. Of late, she had called more frequently on Maria than usual: and Maria, her conscience weighty with the obligation, at last set out to return it.

It took her past those tenements familiarly called the Pollard cottages: in one of which lived troublesome Mrs. Bond. All the inmates of these cottages were well known to Maria: had been known to her from childhood: the Rector of All Souls’ was wont to say that he had more trouble with the Pollard cottages than with all the rest of his parish. For one thing, sickness was often prevalent in them; sometimes death; and sickness and death give trouble and anxiety to a conscientious pastor.

“Mamma, you going to see old Susan to-day?” chattered Miss Meta, as they approached the cottages.

“Not to-day, Meta. I am going straight on to Mrs. Pain’s.”

Meta, who was troubled with no qualms on the score of ceremony herself, perceiving one of the doors open, darted suddenly into it. Meta was rather in the habit of darting into any open door that it took her fancy so to do. Maria walked on a few steps, and then turned and waited: but the little truant did not appear to be in a hurry to come out, and she went back and followed her in.

A lady in a rusty black stuff gown covered with snuff, her cap awry and her face somewhat flushed, was seated in state before a round deal table, doing nothing; except contemplating certain articles that were on the table, with a remarkably gratified expression of countenance. The lady was Mrs. Bond: and this, as Maria was soon to hear, had been a decidedly red-letter day with her. On the table—and it was this which appeared to be fascinating the attention of Meta—was a large wicker cage containing a parrot; a small parrot with a plumage as fine as Mrs. Charlotte Pain’s, an angry-looking tuft on its head, not at all unlike her hat’s tuft of feathers. Mrs. Bond’s attention appeared not to be so much absorbed by the parrot and cage, as by a green medicine-bottle, containing some clear-looking liquid, and a tea-cup without a handle. These latter articles were standing immediately before her.

The friend was faithful. He had arrived on his mission that very morning at Mrs. Bond’s, delivering the parrot uninjured and in rude health—if its capacity for screaming might be taken as an indication. The money turned out to be eleven pounds: a ten-pound note, and a sovereign in gold. Peggy probably knew enough of her mother to be certain that the first outlay made would be for “something comforting,” and this may have induced her to add a sovereign, in some faint hope that the note would be preserved intact. Mrs. Bond had the sense to discern Peggy’s motive, and openly spoke of it to Maria. She was in an open mood. In point of fact she had gone right off to Prior’s Ash and changed the sovereign, bringing home that green bottle full of—comfort. It was three parts empty now, and Mrs. Bond, in consequence, had become rather red in the face, and was slipping some of her long words.

“But you will not think of changing the note, will you?” returned Maria, in answer to what Mrs. Bond disclosed. “How useful it would be to you in the winter for clothing and fire—if you would only keep it until then!”

“So it ’ould,” responded Mrs. Bond.

She dived into her pocket, and brought forth the note and a handful of silver, all lying loose, amidst a miscellaneous collection. “Don’t it look pretty?” cried she.

“Very,” said Maria, not certain whether she alluded to the parrot or the money, for Mrs. Bond’s eyes were not remarkably direct in their glances just then. “Too pretty to spend,” she added, in reference to the note. “You had better give it to papa, Mrs. Bond, and let him take care of it for you.”

Mrs. Bond shook her head at this proposition. “Once the parson gets hold on any little bit of our money to keep, he ain’t free to give it up again,” she objected. “‘Keep it for this,’ says he, or ‘keep it for that;’ and it ends in its being laid out as he likes, not as us do.”

“As you please, of course,” rejoined Maria. “I only thought it a pity you should not derive some real benefit from this money. If you keep it yourself you may be induced to change it, and then it would dwindle away in trifles, and do you no good.”

“That it ’ould!” acknowledged Mrs. Bond. “I’ve a’most a mind to let it be took care on, after all. If ’twas anybody but the Rector!”

“Shall I keep it for you?” asked Maria.

“Well now, ’ould you, ma’am?”

“Yes, I will. If you please.”

Mrs. Bond detached the note from the silver and other articles which she had brought up indiscriminately from her pocket. They lay in her capacious lap, and appeared to afford food for gratification to Meta, who had come round from the parrot to look at them. A brass thimble, a damp blue-bag, some halfpence, a recipe for toothache, a piece of ginger, and the end of a tallow candle, being amongst the items.

“You’ll promise to let me have it back if I asks for it?” cried she, clutching the note, and waiting for Maria’s promise before she would surrender it.

“Lawks, ay! It would a got me through the cold beautiful.”

“And I hope you will let this get you through next year’s cold,” returned Maria, putting the note into her purse.

“Ay, sure! But now, ain’t it kind o’ Peggy?”

“Yes. It is delightful to hear that she is so well settled at last.”

“I’ve been drinking her health, and better luck still,” said Mrs. Bond, taking the cork out of the bottle, and pouring out half its remaining contents. “’Ould ye just take a drain, ma’am?”

“No, thank you,” replied Maria. “I don’t like the smell of it.”

“No!” returned Mrs. Bond, who, truth to say, but for the “drains” she had taken herself, and which had tended slightly to muddle her perceptions, would never have thought of proffering the invitation. “Not like the smell! It were tenpence the half-pint.”

Maria took the child’s hand. Meta gave it reluctantly: the new parrot possessed great attractions for her. “I’ll come again and see it to-morrow,” said she to Mrs. Bond. “I’ll come with Margery. I am coming to play in the hayfield.”

“Ay,” returned Mrs. Bond. “Ain’t it pretty! It’s the best Old Tom.”

She was evidently getting a little confused in her intellects. Had Maria been a strong-minded district visitor, given to reforming the evils of the parish, she might have read Mrs. Bond a lecture on sobriety, and walked off with the bottle. Mrs. Bond and such medicine-bottles had however been too long and too well acquainted with each other, to admit any hope of their effectually parting now: and the last thing Maria caught, as she glanced back, was a vision of that lady’s head thrown back, the inverted tea-cup to her lips.

“The note would have been changed before the week was out!” was Maria’s mental comment.

Without further adventure, she reached Lady Godolphin’s Folly. Charlotte had visitors. A country squire’s wife with her two daughters had come for a few days from their sober residence at a few miles’ distance to the attractions of the Folly. Charlotte could make it attractive when she liked; and invitations to it were in demand—which has been previously remarked. If people did think Mrs. Pain somewhat “fast” in her manners, she was no faster than some others.

Charlotte was in one of her pleasantest moods, and Maria had rarely seen her looking so well. She wore a morning-dress of pink muslin, made simply, and confined at the waist by a band. Her hair was dressed simply also, brought rather low on her face, and rolled: even Margery could not have found fault with her looks this morning.

Or with her manner, either. She regaled Meta with strawberries; and when they were finished, caught her up in her arms and carried her out by the glass door.

“Do not keep her long, Mrs. Pain,” said Maria. “I must be going.”

“Where is your hurry?” asked Charlotte.

Charlotte departed with Meta, and Maria continued with the ladies, Charlotte’s guests. They had been talking a few minutes, when loud screams of terror from Meta alarmed their ears. Maria hastened out in the direction of the sound, her cheeks and lips alike blanched.

She came upon them—Charlotte and the child—in that secluded, lovely spot amidst the grove of trees, where Charlotte Pain—and you saw her—had held an interview with her future husband, Rodolf, on George Godolphin’s wedding-day. Charlotte had now carried the child there, and set her on the mossy turf, and called her dogs around. She had done it thinking to give pleasure to the child. But Meta was of a timid nature; she was not used to dogs; and upon one of them springing on her with a bark, “all for play,” as Charlotte said, her fear broke forth in terrified cries. When Maria reached them, Charlotte had caught up Meta in her arms, and was kicking the dogs off.

Meta sprang from Charlotte’s arms to her mother’s, with a great cry. Maria, not so strongly-framed as Charlotte, could not hold this child of between five and six at her ease, but was fain to stagger with her to a bench. Meta lay in her lap, clinging to her and sobbing convulsively.

“My darling, what is it?” whispered Maria. “What has hurt you?”

“Oh, mamma, send them away! send them away!” cried the little imploring voice.

“Would you be so kind as send the dogs away, Mrs. Pain?” asked Maria. “I think she is frightened at them.”

“I know she is, foolish little thing!” answered Charlotte, going off with the dogs. Apparently she disposed of them somewhere, for she returned the next minute without them. Maria was in the same place, holding her child to her heart.

“Mrs. George Godolphin, don’t you think you will have to answer sometime for the manner in which you are rearing that child?” began she, gravely.

“In what way?” returned Maria.

“You are bringing her up to be as timid as yourself.”

“Am I particularly timid?”

“You! Why, you know you are. You don’t ride: you wouldn’t drive for the world; you are afraid of dogs.”

“I could manage to ride a quiet pony,” said Maria. “As to dogs, I confess that I am a little afraid of them, if they are rough.”

“If a dog only barks, you call it ‘rough,’” retorted Charlotte. “I should just put that child down again, and call the dogs round her, and let her battle it out with them. They would not hurt her; there’s no fear of that; and it would teach her to overcome fear.”

“Oh, Mrs. Pain!” Maria involuntarily strained her child closer to her, and Meta, who had heard the words, pushed her little hot face of distress nearer to its shelter. “It might throw her into such a state of terror, that she would never forget it. She would be frightened at dogs for her life. That is not the way to treat children, indeed, Mrs. Pain!”

“You pretty little timid goose!” cried Charlotte, kissing her. “Whatever would you do if you were to lose your mamma?”

“It would be a calamity, would it not, Meta?” said Maria, speaking half-jokingly; and Charlotte answered in the same light spirit.

“A calamity in one sense, of course. But she might get a chance then of having a little of the rust rubbed out of her. Meta, we must have some more strawberries after this.”

But Meta could not be seduced to strawberries. Maria said farewell, and led her away, bending her steps to Ashlydyat. The child was frightened still. Janet gravely assured her that the dogs would not come to Ashlydyat, and Meta allowed herself to be taken possession of by Cecil, introducing the subject of Mrs. Bond’s beautiful parrot and its large cage as she was going away.

“We have heard about the parrot,” remarked Bessy to Maria. “Susan Satcherly hobbled up here this morning, and mentioned its arrival. Susan hopes it won’t scream all night as well as all day: she hears it next door as plainly as though the parrot were present there. A ten-pound note has come also, she says. Which I am almost sorry for,” added Bessy: “though I suppose Mrs. Bond would think me terribly ill-natured if she heard me say so. She will change that note to-day, and never rest until the last shilling of it has been spent.”

“No, she will not,” returned Maria, laughing, holding out the note in triumph. “She has given it to me to keep for her.”

“Never!” exclaimed Bessy in surprise. “You must have exercised some sleight-of-hand, Maria, to get that!”

Maria laughed. “She was in an unusually tractable humour, Bessy. The fact is, a sovereign had arrived as well as the bank-note: and that she had changed.”

Bessy nodded her head. She knew Mrs. Bond of old. “I understand,” said she. “Was she very bad, Maria?”

“No; not then. But I can’t say what she may be before the day is over. She brought a handful of silver out of her pocket.”

“Now, mind, Maria—don’t give her up that note, let her ask for it ever so,” advised Bessy. “Keep it until winter.”

“If she will allow me,” replied Maria. “But she only resigned it on condition that I would return it to her if she asked for it. I promised that I would do so.”

“I should not: promise or no promise,” returned Bessy. “Keeping it would be for her good, you know, Maria.”

Maria shook her head. She could not be strong-minded, as Bessy was, acting for people’s good against their will; and she could not go from her promise. She returned the note to her purse, knowing that Mrs. Bond would have it, if she chose to demand it.

Janet sent a note to the Bank, to desire George to come up to dinner with Thomas. When Thomas arrived, however, he was alone. George was out, therefore the note had not been given to him. They supposed he would be up in the evening, and dined without him.

But the evening passed on, and he did not come. Thomas’s private opinion was that George must have remained to search for the missing deeds. Thomas could not be easy under such a misfortune—as it might in truth be called. The sum was by far too weighty to be lost with equanimity. And that was not all: there was the unpleasant uncertainty with regard to the disappearance. Thomas mentioned the matter in confidence amongst them. At least, to Maria and Janet; the other two had gone out with Meta. Janet observed that he appeared absorbed in thought, as if uneasy at something; and he readily acknowledged that he had been rendered uneasy by a circumstance which had occurred during the day: the missing of some deeds that they had believed to be in safe custody.

“What if you cannot find them, Thomas?” asked Janet.

“Then we must make good the loss.”

“Is it a heavy amount?”

“Yes.”

Janet looked startled. Thomas’s grave manner did not tend to reassure her. She gave utterance to some half-spoken words.

“It is a heavy amount as a loss,” explained Thomas. “In fact, it is a large sum in itself. It would cost us over sixteen thousand pounds to make it good.”

Janet lifted her hands in dismay. “And all from the loss of a single packet of deeds?”

“Even so.”

“But how can they have been lost?”

“There it is,” said Thomas Godolphin. “If we could tell as much as that, it would be some satisfaction. We cannot imagine how or when they were lost. George missed them a month ago; but——”

“A month ago! Did George miss them a month ago?”

It was Maria who interrupted, eagerness in her voice and manner. It had occurred to her that the fact might account for a certain restlessness, an anxiety in George’s manner, which she had not failed to remark of late. The next words of Thomas Godolphin served to dissipate the illusion.

“George looked for the deeds a month ago. Not finding them in the box, he concluded that I had moved them. Therefore we cannot be said to have known of the loss until to-day.”

“George ought to have asked you,” said Janet.

“Yes, he ought,” acquiesced Thomas. But it was all he said.

“It is just like careless George!” exclaimed Janet. “Should the time ever come that he is sole head of the Bank, I do not know how it will get on! To whom did the deeds belong, Thomas?”

“You are sure you had them?” asked cautious Janet.

A half smile crossed Thomas Godolphin’s lips. “Quite sure, Janet. You understand,” he added, looking at them both, “we do not care that this should be spoken of. You are safe, I know, Janet; and Maria would most likely hear it from George.”

Maria had been buried in a reverie. “I cannot conceive how it is possible for anything to have been lost from the strong-room,” she said, lifting her head. “All about us are trustworthy. And, were they not, there would be no possibility of their getting to the safes in the strong-room.”

“You are right, Maria,” said Thomas. “I have thought of it until I am bewildered.”

Maria seemed to be getting bewildered also. She was thinking of it in its every aspect and bearing. Many little past incidents, proving that her husband was ill at ease, had something on his mind, rushed into her memory. She had not thought much of them before: but they grew strangely vivid now. To miss deeds of this value would amply account for it.

“Thomas,” said she, speaking out her thoughts, “do you not think George must have feared there was something wrong, when he missed them at first? I do.”

“No. Why do you think it?”

“Because——” Maria stopped. It suddenly occurred to her that it might not be quite right to comment upon her husband’s manner, what it had, or what it had not been; that he might not like her to do so, although it was only to his brother and sister. So she turned it off: speaking any indifferent words that came uppermost.

“It is curious, missing a packet of deeds of that value from its place, that he should not have feared it might be missing altogether.”

“The very fact of his not asking me about it, Maria, proves that no suspicion of wrong crossed his mind,” was the comment of Thomas Godolphin. “He supposed I had placed it elsewhere.”

“That’s just like George!” repeated Janet. “Taking things on trust, as he takes people! A child might deceive him.”

“I hope we shall find them yet,” said Thomas Godolphin.

“Does Lord Averil——”

What Janet might be about to inquire was never known. The words were stopped by a strange noise, an appalling noise, apparently at the very door of the room they were in. A loud, prolonged, discordant noise, unlike anything they had ever heard. Some might have compared it to the shrieks of a strong giant in his agony; some to the hoarse screams of a bird of prey. But it was unlike either: it was unlike anything earthly.

With one bound, they flew to the hall, on to which the room opened, Maria, white with terror. The servants came rushing from their apartments, and stood in consternation.

“I cannot think what it could have been!” he observed, speaking generally.

The servants were ready with answering remarks. One had thought this; one had thought that; another something else. Maria had seized upon Janet: glad, perhaps, that it was too dark for her white face to be discerned. It was the sound which had so terrified her: no association in her mind was connected with it; and it was the sound which had terrified the servants. They had never heard a sound like unto it in all their lives.

“It must have been a night-bird, shrieking as he flew over the house,” observed Mr. Godolphin.

But, in truth, he so spoke only in the absence of any other possible assumption, and against his own belief. No bird of prey, known to ornithology, could have made that noise, even had it been within the hall to do it. A dozen birds of prey could not have made it. Thomas, like the rest, felt bewildered.

The servants began to move away. Nothing more than usual was to be seen in the darkened hall; nothing to be heard. As the last one disappeared, Thomas turned to the drawing-room door, and held it open for his sister and Maria.

At that very moment when they had gone in, and Thomas was following, the noise came again. Loud, prolonged, shrill, unearthly! What was it? Were the rafters of the house loosening? the walls rending asunder? Were the skies opening for the crack of doom? They gathered in the hall again: master, ladies, servants; and stood there, motionless, appalled, bewildered, their faces whiter than before.

Its echoes died away in shrieks. Human cries this time, and not unfamiliar. One of the women-servants, excited beyond repression, had fallen into hysterics.

But whence had proceeded that noise? Where had been its centre? Without the house, or within the house?—in its walls, its passages, its hall?—where? Its sound had been everywhere. In short, what had caused it? what had it been?

CHAPTER XIV.
ISAAC HASTINGS TURNS TO THINKING.

The revelation to Isaac Hastings, that the deeds, missing, belonged to Lord Averil, set that young gentleman thinking. Like his father, like his sister Grace, he was an exceedingly accurate observer, given to taking note of passing events. He had keen perception, a retentive memory for trifles, great powers of comparison and concentration. What with one thing and another, he had been a little puzzled lately by Mr. George Godolphin. There had been sundry odds and ends out of the common to be detected in Mr. George’s manner: not patent to the generality of people, who are for the most part unobservant, but sufficiently conspicuous to Isaac Hastings. Anxiety about letters; trifles in the everyday ordering of the Bank; one little circumstance, touching a delay in paying out some money, which Isaac, and he alone, had become accidentally cognizant of; all formed food for speculation. There had been the somewhat doubtful affair of George Godolphin’s secret journey to London, leaving false word with his wife that he was accompanying Captain St. Aubyn on the road to Portsmouth, which had travelled to the knowledge of Isaac through want of reticence in Charlotte Pain. More than all, making more impression upon Isaac, had been the strange, shrinking fear displayed by George, that Saturday when he had announced Lord Averil: a fear succeeded by a confusion of manner that proved his master must for the moment have lost his presence of mind. Isaac Hastings had announced the names of other gentlemen that day, and the announcement, equally with themselves, had been received with the most perfect equanimity. Isaac had often thought of that little episode since, and wondered; wondered what there could be in Lord Averil’s visit to scare Mr. George Godolphin. It recurred to him now with double distinctness. The few words he had overheard, between Lord Averil and Mr. Godolphin, recurred to him—the former saying that George must have known of the loss of the deeds when he had asked for them a month ago, that he judged so by his manner, which was peculiar, hesitating, uncertain, “as though he had known of the loss then, and did not like to tell of it.”

To the strange manner Isaac himself could have borne witness. Had this strangeness been caused by the knowledge of the loss of the deeds?—if so, why did not George Godolphin make a stir about them then? Only on the previous day, when Lord Averil had again made his appearance, Isaac had been further struck with George’s startled hesitation, and with his refusal to see him. He had sent out word as the excuse, that he was particularly engaged. Isaac had believed at the time that George was no more engaged than he himself was. And now, this morning, when it could not be concealed any longer, came the commotion. The deeds were gone: they had disappeared in the most unaccountable manner, no one knowing how or when.

Ought he to give a hint of this to his father? He did not know. On the one hand there was sober reason, which told him George Godolphin was not likely to be guilty of such a thing on the other, lay his fancy, whispering that it might be so. Things as strange had been enacted lately; as the public knew. Men, in an equally good position with George Godolphin, were proved to have been living upon fraud for years. Isaac was fond of newspapers, and knew all they could tell him. What if anything came wrong to this Bank? Why then, Mr. Hastings would be a ruined man. It was not only the loss of his own life’s savings, that were in the hands of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin, but there was the larger sum he had placed there as trustee to the little Chisholms.

Isaac Hastings lingered in the Bank till the last that evening. All had gone, except Mr. Hurde. The latter was preparing to leave, when Isaac went up to him, leaning his arms upon the desk.

“It is a strange thing about those deeds, Mr. Hurde!” cried he, in a low tone.

Mr. Hurde nodded.

“It is troubling me amazingly,” went on Isaac.

This seemed to arouse the old clerk, and he looked up, speaking curtly.

“Why should it trouble you? You didn’t take them, I suppose?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Isaac.

“Very well, then. The loss won’t fall upon you. There’s no need for your troubling.”

Isaac was silent. In truth, he was unable to give any reason for the “troubling,” except on general grounds: he could not say that a doubt was haunting his mind as to the good faith of Mr. George Godolphin.

“It is a loss which I suppose Mr. George will have to make good, as they were in his custody,” he resumed. “My sister won’t like it, I fear.”

The observation recalled Mr. Hurde’s memory to the fact that Mrs. George Godolphin was the sister of Isaac Hastings. It afforded a sufficient excuse for the remarks in the mind of the clerk, and somewhat pacified him.

“It is to be hoped they’ll be found,” said he. “I don’t see how they could have gone.”

“Nor I,” returned Isaac. “The worst is, if they have gone——”

“What?” asked Mr. Hurde, for Isaac had stopped.

Mr. Hurde groaned. “They have not been taken for nothing, you may be sure.”

“If they have been taken,” persisted Isaac.

“If they have been taken,” assented Mr. Hurde. “I don’t believe they have. From the sheer impossibility of anybody’s getting to them, I don’t believe it. And I shan’t believe it, until every nook and corner between the four walls have been hunted over.”

“How do you account for their disappearance, then?”

“I think they must have been moved inadvertently.”

“No one could so move them except Mr. Godolphin or Mr. George,” rejoined Isaac.

“Mr. Godolphin has not moved them,” returned the clerk in a testy tone of reproof. “Mr. Godolphin is too accurate a man of business to move deeds inadvertently, or to move them and forget it the next moment. Mr. George may have done it. In searching for anything in the strong-room, if he has had more than one case open at once, he may have put these deeds back in their wrong place, or even brought them upstairs.”

Isaac considered for a minute, and then shook his head. “I should not think it,” he answered.

“Well, it is the only supposition I can come to,” was the concluding remark of Mr. Hurde. “It is next to an impossibility, Mr. Godolphin excepted, that any one else can have got to the deeds.”

He was drawing on his gloves as he spoke, to depart. Isaac went out with him, but their roads lay different ways. Isaac turned towards All Souls’ Rectory, and walked along in deep reverie.

The Rectory hours were early, and he found them at tea: his mother, Rose, and Grace. Grace—Mrs. Akeman by her new name—was spending the evening with them with her baby. The Rector, who had gone out in the afternoon, had not yet returned.

Isaac took his tea and then strolled into the garden. Rose and the baby were making a great noise, and Grace was helping them. It disturbed Isaac in his perplexed thought, and he made a mental vow that if he was ever promoted to a home of his own with babies in it, they should be confined to some top room, out of sight and hearing.

By-and-by, when he was leaning over the gate, looking into the road, Mr. Hastings came up. Isaac told him that tea was over: but Mr. Hastings said he had taken a cup with one of his parishioners. He had apparently walked home quickly, and he lifted his hat and wiped his brow.

“Glorious weather for the haymaking, Isaac!”

“Is it?” returned Isaac abstractedly.

“Is it!” repeated Mr. Hastings. “Where are your senses, boy?”

Isaac laughed and roused himself. “I fear they were buried just then, sir. I was thinking of something that has happened at the Bank to-day. A loss has been discovered.”

“A loss?” repeated Mr Hastings. “A loss of what?”

“How can the deeds have gone?” exclaimed Mr. Hastings. As every one else had said.

“I don’t know,” replied Isaac, breaking off a spray from the hedge, and beginning to bite the thorns. “I suppose it is all right,” he presently added.

“Right in what way?” asked Mr. Hastings.

“I suppose George Godolphin’s all right, I mean.”

The words were as an unknown tongue to Mr. Hastings. He did not fathom them. “You suppose that George Godolphin is all right!” he exclaimed. “You speak in riddles, Isaac.”

“I cannot say I suspect anything wrong, sir; but the doubt has crossed me. It never would have done so, but for George Godolphin’s manner.”

Mr. Hastings turned his penetrating gaze on his son, “Speak out,” said he. “Tell me what you mean.”

Isaac did so. He related the circumstances of the loss; the confused manner he had observed in Mr. George Godolphin, on the visits of Lord Averil, and his reluctance to receive them. One little matter he suppressed: the stolen visit of George to London, and deceit to Maria, relative to it. Isaac did not see what that could have had to do with the loss of the deeds, and his good feeling told him that it was not a pleasant thing to name to his father. Mr. Hastings did not speak for a few minutes.

“Isaac, I see no reasonable grounds for your doubts,” he said at length. “The Bank is too flourishing for that. Perhaps you meant only as to George?”

“I can scarcely tell whether I really meant anything,” replied Isaac. “The doubts arose to me, and I thought I would mention them to you. I dare say my fancy is to blame: it does run riot sometimes.”

A silence ensued. Mr. Hastings broke it. “With a keen man of business, such as Mr. Thomas Godolphin, at the head of affairs, George could not go far wrong, I should presume. I think he spends enough on his own score, mark you, Isaac; but that has nothing to do with the prosperity of the Bank.”

“Of course not. Unless——”

“Unless what? Why don’t you speak out?”

“Because I am not sure of my premises, sir,” frankly answered Isaac. “Unless he were to have become irretrievably embarrassed, and should be using the Bank’s funds for his own purposes, I believe I was about to say.”