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.
but she had not dressed for it—as some people would consider dress; charlotte herself, for instance; charlotte would arrive, splendid as the sun; not a colour of the rainbow came amiss to her; a green dress one day, a violet another, a crimson a third, and so on. dresses with[259] flounces and furbelows; jackets interlaced with gold and silver; brimless hats surmounted by upright plumes. all that charlotte wore was good, as far as cost went: as far as taste went, opinions differed. maria had inherited the taste of her mother: she could not have been fine had you bribed her with gold. she wore to-day a pale dress of watered silk; a beautiful cashmere shawl of thin texture, and a white bonnet, all plain and quiet, as befitted a lady. the charming day had induced her to walk; and the faint perfume of the hay, wafting through prior’s ash, had caused her to choose the field way. the longest way, but infinitely the pleasantest.
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.
two or three years ago, mrs. bond’s eldest daughter, peggy, a damsel who had not borne the brightest of characters for steadiness, had been taken out to australia by a family to whom she engaged herself as nurse-girl. after sundry vicissitudes in that country—which she duly chronicled home to her mother, and that lady was wont to relate in convivial moments, over tea or any other social beverage—peggy had come to an anchor by marrying. she wrote word that her husband was an industrious young carpenter, who was making his fortune, and they were quite at ease in the world. as a proof of the latter statement, she had sent over a parrot to her mother as a keepsake, and a[260] trifle of money; which would be safely delivered by a friend, who was going the home voyage.
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.
[261]“certainly i will. whenever you wish for it, you shall have it. only,” maria added, smiling, “if you ask for it too soon, i shall beg you still to let me keep it. don’t you remember how badly off you were last winter? just think what a ten-pound note would have done for you then, mrs. bond!”
“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.
[262]“i am going on to ashlydyat.”
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!”
meta could not be coaxed down again. maria was not strong[263] enough to carry her to the house, so charlotte took her up in her arms. but the child would not release her hand from her mother’s, and maria had to walk along, holding it.
“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.
maria was easily persuaded to remain for the day at ashlydyat. she sat at the window in the height of enjoyment. it was enjoyment to maria godolphin: sitting there in perfect stillness on a calm summer’s day. the lovely flowers of ashlydyat’s garden, its velvet lawns, were stretched out before her: the white walls of lady godolphin’s folly[264] rose in the distance; and maria sat in an easy-chair in luxurious idleness, her fair white hands lying in her lap. meta was away somewhere, fascinating the household, and all was rest. rest from exertion, rest from care. the time came when maria looked back on that day and believed it must have been paradise.
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?”
[265]“to lord averil.”
“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.
what was the noise? what had caused it? the questions were pouring forth from all. the hall was perfectly empty, except for its startled gazers; doors and windows had been closed. thomas walked to the entrance and looked beyond, beyond the porch, but nothing[266] was there. the space was empty; the evening was calm and still. at a distance, borne on the evening air, could be heard the merry laughter of meta, playing with bessy and cecil. thomas came in and closed the door again.
“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?
they could not tell. it was a problem beyond human philosophy to solve. they could not tell then; they could not tell afterwards. it has been no ideal scene that i have described, as living witnesses could testify. witnesses who can no more account for those unearthly sounds now, than they could account for them then.
