we must turn to ashlydyat, and go back to a little earlier in the evening. miss godolphin’s note to the folly had stated that her brother had been taken ill while dressing for mr. verrall’s dinner-party. it was correct. thomas godolphin was alone in his room, ready, when he was attacked by a sharp internal paroxysm of agony. he hastily sat down: a cry escaped his lips, and drops of water gathered on his brow.
alone he bore it, calling for no aid. in a few minutes the pain had partially passed, and he rang for his servant. an old man now, that servant: he had for years attended on sir george godolphin.
“bexley, i have been ill again,” said thomas, quietly. “will you ask miss godolphin to write a line to mr. verrall, saying that i am unable to attend.”
bexley cast a strangely yearning look on the pale, suffering face of his master. he had seen him in these paroxysms once or twice. “i wish you would have mr. snow called in, sir!” he cried.
“i think i shall. he may give me some ease, possibly. take my message to your mistress, bexley.”
the effect of the message was to bring janet to the room. “taken ill! a sharp inward pain!” she was repeating, after bexley. “thomas, what sort of a pain is it? it seems to me that you have had the same before lately.”
“write a few words the first thing, will you, janet? i should not like to keep them waiting for me.”
janet, punctilious as thomas, considerate as he was for others, sat down and wrote the note, despatching it at once by andrew, one of the serving men. few might have set about and done it so calmly as janet, considering that she had a great fear thumping at her heart. a fear which had never penetrated it until this moment. with something very like sickness, had flashed into her memory their mother’s pain. a sharp, agonizing pain had occasionally attacked her, the symptom of the inward malady of which she had died. was the same fatal malady attacking thomas? the doctors had expressed their fears then that it might prove hereditary.
in the corridor, as janet was going back to thomas’s room, the note despatched, she encountered bexley. the sad, apprehensive look in the old man’s face struck her. she touched his arm, and beckoned him into an empty room.
“what is it that is the matter with your master?”
[180]“i don’t know,” was the answer: but the words were spoken in a tone which caused janet to think that the old man was awake to the same fears that she was. “miss janet, i am afraid to think what it may be.”
“is he often ill like this?”
“i know but of a time or two, ma’am. but that’s a time or two too many.”
janet returned to the room. thomas was leaning back in his chair, his face ghastly, his hands fallen, prostrate altogether from the effects of the agony. things were coming into her mind one by one: how much time thomas had spent in his own room of late; how seldom, comparatively speaking, he went to the bank; how often he had the brougham, instead of walking, when he did go to it. once—why, it was only this very last sunday!—he had not gone near church all day long. janet’s fears grew into certainties.
she took a chair, drawing it nearer to thomas. not speaking of her fears, but asking him in a soothing tone how he felt, and what had caused his illness. “have you had the same pain before?” she continued.
“several times,” he answered. “but it has been worse to-night than i have previously felt it. janet, i fear it may be the forerunner of my call. i did not think to leave you so soon.”
except that janet’s face went almost as pale as his, and that her fingers entwined themselves together so tightly as to cause pain, there was no outward sign of the grief that laid hold of her heart.
“thomas, what is the complaint that you are fearing?” she asked, after a pause. “the same that—that——”
“that my mother had,” he quietly answered, speaking the words that janet would not speak.
“it may not be so,” gasped janet.
“true. but i think it is.”
“why have you never spoken of this?”
“because, until to-night, i have doubted whether it was so, or not. a suspicion, that it might be so, certainly was upon me: but it amounted to no more than suspicion. at times, when i feel quite well, i argue that i must be wrong.”
“have you consulted mr. snow?”
“i am going to do so now. i have desired bexley to send for him.”
“it should have been done before, thomas.”
“why? if it is as i suspect, neither snow nor all his brethren can save me.”
janet clasped her hands upon her knee, and sat with her head bent. she was feeling the communication in all its bitter force. it seemed that the only one left on earth with whom she could sympathize was thomas: and now perhaps he was going! bessy, george, cecil, all were younger, all had their own pursuits and interests; george had his new ties; but she and thomas seemed to stand alone. with the deep sorrow for him, the brother whom she dearly loved, came other considerations, impossible not to occur to a practical, foreseeing mind such as janet’s. with thomas they should lose ashlydyat. george would come into possession: and george’s ways were so different from theirs,[181] that it would seem to be no longer in the family. what would george make of it? a gay, frequented place, as the verralls—when they were at home—made of lady godolphin’s folly? janet’s cheeks flushed at the idea of such degeneracy for stately ashlydyat. however it might be, whether george turned it into an ever-open house, or shut it up as a nunnery, it would be alike lost to all the rest of them. she and her sisters must turn from it once again and for ever; george, his wife, and his children, would reign there.
janet godolphin did not rebel at this; she would not have had it otherwise. failing thomas, george was the fit and proper representative of ashlydyat. but the fact could but strike upon her now with gloom. all things wore a gloomy hue to her in that unhappy moment.
it would cause changes at the bank, too. at least, janet thought it probable that it might do so. could george carry on that extensive concern himself? would the public be satisfied with gay george for its sole head?—would they accord him the confidence they had given thomas? these old retainers, too! if she and her sisters quitted ashlydyat, they must part with them: leave them to serve george.
such considerations passed rapidly through her imagination. it could not well be otherwise. would they really come to pass? she looked at thomas, as if seeking in his face the answer to the doubt.
his elbow on the arm of his chair, and his temples pressed upon his hand, sat thomas; his mind in as deep a reverie as janet’s. where was it straying to? to the remembrance of ethel?—of the day that he had stood over her grave when they were placing her in it? had the time indeed come, or nearly come, to which he had, from that hour, looked forward?—the time of his joining her? he had never lost the vision: and perhaps the fiat, death, could have come to few who would meet it so serenely as thomas godolphin. it would scarcely be right to say welcome it; but, certain it was that the prospect was one of pleasantness rather than of pain to him. to one who has lived near to god on earth, the anticipation of the great change can bring no dismay. it brought none to thomas godolphin.
but thomas godolphin had not done with earth and its cares yet.
bessy godolphin was away from home that week. she had gone to spend it with some friends at a few miles’ distance. cecil was alone when janet returned to the drawing-room. she had no suspicion of the sorrow that was overhanging the house. she had not seen thomas go to the folly, and felt surprised at his tardiness.
“how late he will be, janet!”
“who? thomas! he is not going. he is not very well this evening,” was the reply.
cecil thought nothing of it. how should she? janet buried her fears within her, and said no more.
one was to dine at lady godolphin’s folly that night, who absorbed all cecil’s thoughts. cecil godolphin had had her romance in life; as so many have it. it had been partially played out years ago. not quite. its sequel had still to come. she sat there listlessly; her pretty hands resting inertly on her knee, her beautiful face tinged with the setting sunlight; sat there thinking of him—lord averil.
[182]a romance it had really been. cecil godolphin had paid a long visit to the honourable mrs. averil, some three or four years ago. she, mrs. averil, was in health then, fond of gaiety, and her house had many visitors. amidst others, staying there, was lord averil: and before he and cecil knew well what they were about, they had learned to love each other. lord averil was the first to awake from the pleasant dream: to know what it meant; and he discreetly withdrew himself out of harm’s way. harm only to himself, as he supposed: he never suspected that the same love had won its way to cecil godolphin. a strictly honourable man, he would have been ready to kill himself in self-condemnation had he suspected that it had. not until he had gone, did it come out to cecil that he was a married man. when only eighteen years of age he had been drawn into one of those unequal and unhappy alliances that can only bring a flush to the brow in after-years. many a hundred times had it dyed that of lord averil. before he was twenty years of age, he had separated from his wife; when pretty cecil was yet a child: and the next ten years he had spent abroad, striving to outlive its remembrance. his own family, you may be sure, did not pain him by alluding to it, then, or after his return. he had no residence now in the neighbourhood of prior’s ash: he had sold it years ago. when he visited the spot, it was chiefly as the guest of colonel max, the master of the fox-hounds: and in that way he had made the acquaintance of charlotte pain. thus it happened, when cecil met him at mrs. averil’s, that she knew nothing of his being a married man. on mrs. averil’s part, she never supposed that cecil did not know it. lord averil supposed she knew it: and little enough in his own eyes has he looked in her presence, when the thought would flash over him, “how she must despise me for my mad folly!” he had learned to love her; to love her passionately: never so much as glancing at the thought that it could be reciprocated. he, a married man! but this folly was no less mad than the other had been, and lord averil had the sense to remove himself from it.
a day or two after his departure, mrs. averil received a letter from him. cecil was in her dressing-room when she read it.
“how strange!” was the comment of mrs. averil. “what do you think, cecil?” she added, lowering her voice. “when he reached town there was a communication waiting for him at his house, saying that his wife was dying, and praying him to go and see her.”
“his wife?” echoed cecil. “whose wife?”
“lord averil’s. have you forgotten that he had a wife? i wish we could all really forget it. it has been the blight of his life.”
cecil had discretion enough left in that unhappy moment not to betray that she had been ignorant of the fact. when her burning cheeks had a little cooled, she turned from the window where she had been hiding them, and escaped to her own room. the revelation had betrayed to her the secret of her own feelings for lord averil; and in her pride and rectitude, she thought she should have died.
a day or two more, and lord averil was a widower. he suffered some months to elapse, and then came to prior’s ash, his object being cecil godolphin. he stayed at an hotel, and was a frequent visitor at ashlydyat. cecil believed that he meant to ask her to be his wife;[183] and cecil was not wrong. she could give herself up now to the full joy of loving him.
busy tongues, belonging to some young ladies who boasted more wit than discretion, hinted something of this to cecil. cecil, in her vexation at having her private feelings suspected, spoke slightingly of lord averil. “did they think she would stoop to a widower; to one who had made himself so notorious by his first marriage?” she asked. and this, word for word, was repeated to lord averil.
it was repeated to him by those false friends, and cecil’s haughty manner, as she spoke it, offensively commented upon. lord averil fully believed it. he judged that he had no chance with cecil godolphin; and, without speaking to her of what had been his intentions, he again left.
but now, no suspicion of this conversation having been repeated to him, ever reached cecil. she deemed his behaviour very bad. whatever restraint he may have placed upon his manner towards her, when at mrs. averil’s, he had been open enough since: and cecil could only believe his conduct unjustifiable—the result of fickleness. she resolved to forget him.
but she had not done so yet. all this long time since, nearly three years, had cecil been trying to do it, and it was not yet accomplished. she had received an offer from a young and handsome earl; it would have been a match in every way desirable: but poor cecil found that lord averil was too deeply seated in her heart for her to admit thought of another. and now lord averil was back again at prior’s ash; and, as cecil had heard, was to dine that day at lady godolphin’s folly. he had called at ashlydyat since his return, but she was out.
she sat there, thinking of him: her feeling against him chiefly that of anger. she believed to this hour that he had used her ill; that his behaviour had been unbecoming a gentleman.
her reflections were disturbed by the appearance of mr. snow. it was growing dusk then, and she wondered what brought him there so late: in fact, what brought him there at all. she turned and asked the question of janet.
“he has come to see thomas,” replied janet. and cecil noticed that her sister was sitting in a strangely still attitude, her head bowed down. but she did not connect it with its true cause. it was nothing unusual to see janet lost in deep thought.
“what is the matter with thomas, that mr. snow should come now?” inquired cecil.
“he did not feel well, and sent for him.”
it was all that janet answered. and cecil continued in blissful ignorance of anything being wrong, and resumed her reflections on lord averil.
janet saw mr. snow before he went away. afterwards she went to thomas’s room, and remained in it. cecil stayed in the drawing-room, buried in her dream. the room was lighted, but the blinds were not drawn. cecil was at the window, looking out into the bright moonlight.
it must have been growing quite late when she discerned some one approaching ashlydyat, on the road from lady godolphin’s folly.[184] from the height she fancied at first that it might be george; but as the figure drew nearer, her heart gave a bound, and she saw that it was he upon whom her thoughts had been fixed.
yes, it was lord averil. when he mentioned to charlotte pain that he had a visit yet to pay to a sick friend, he had alluded to thomas godolphin. lord averil, since his return, had been struck with the change in thomas godolphin. it was more perceptible to him than to those who saw thomas habitually. and when the apology came for mr. godolphin’s absence, lord averil determined to call upon him that night. though, in talking to mrs. pain, he almost let the time for it slip by.
cecil rose up when he entered. in broad daylight he might have seen beyond doubt her changing face, telling of emotion. was he mistaken, in fancying that she was agitated? his pulses quickened at the thought: for cecil was as dear to him as she had ever been.
“will you pardon my intrusion at this hour?” he asked, taking her hand, and bending towards her with his sweet smile. “it is later than i thought it was”—in truth, ten was striking that moment from the hall clock. “i was concerned to hear of mr. godolphin’s illness, and wished to ascertain how he was, before returning to prior’s ash.”
“he has kept his room this evening,” replied cecil. “my sister is sitting with him. i do not think it is anything serious. but he has not appeared very well of late.”
“indeed i trust it is nothing serious,” warmly responded lord averil.
cecil fell into silence. she supposed they had told janet of the visit, and that she would be coming in. lord averil went to the window.
“the same charming scene!” he exclaimed. “i think the moonlight view from this window most beautiful. the dark trees, and the white walls of lady godolphin’s folly, rising there, remain on my memory as a painted scene.”
he folded his arms and stood there, gazing still. cecil stole a look up at him: at his pale, attractive face, with its expression of care. she had wondered once why that look of care should be conspicuous there; but not after she became acquainted with his domestic history.
“have you returned to england to remain, lord averil?”
the question awoke him from his reverie. he turned to cecil, and a sudden impulse prompted him to stake his fate on the die of the moment. it was not a lucky throw.
“i would remain if i could induce one to share my name and home. forgive me, cecil, if i anger you by thus hastily speaking. will you forget the past, and help me to forget it?—will you let me make you my dear wife?”
in saying “will you forget the past,” lord averil had alluded to his first marriage. in his extreme sensitiveness upon that point, he doubted whether cecil might not object to succeed the dead lady averil: he believed those hasty and ill-natured words, reported to him as having been spoken by her, bore upon that sore point alone. cecil, on the contrary, assumed that her forgetfulness was asked for his own behaviour to her, in so far as that he had gone away and left her without[185] word or explanation. she grew quite pale with anger. lord averil resumed, his manner earnest, his voice low and tender.
“i have loved you, cecil, from the first day that i saw you at mrs. averil’s. i dragged myself away from the place, because i loved you, fearing lest you might come to see my folly. it was worse than folly then, for i was not a free man. i have gone on loving you more and more, from that time to this. i went abroad this last time hoping to forget you; striving to forget you; but i cannot do it, and the love has only become stronger. forgive, i say, my urging it upon you in this moment’s impulse.”
poor cecil was all at sea. “went abroad, hoping to forget her; striving to forget her!” it was worse and worse. she flung his hand away.
“oh, cecil! can you not love me?” he exclaimed in agitation. “will you not give me hope that you will sometime be my wife?”
“no, i cannot love you. i will not give you hope. i would rather marry any one in the world than you. you ought to be ashamed of yourself, lord averil!”
not a very dignified rejoinder. and cecil, what with anger, what with love, burst into even less dignified tears, and left the room in a passion. lord averil bit his lips to pain.
janet entered, unsuspicious. he turned from the window, and smoothed his brow, gathering what equanimity he could, as he proceeded to inquire after mr. godolphin.
