time elapsed. autumn weather had come; and things were going on in their progression at prior’s ash as things always must go on. be it slow or fast, marked or unmarked, the stream of life must glide forward; onwards, onwards; never turning from its appointed course that bears us straight towards eternity.
in the events that concern us nothing had been very marked. at least, not outwardly. there were no startling changes to be recorded—unless, indeed, it was that noted change in the heart of the town. the bank of which you have heard so much was no more; but in its stead flourished an extensive ironmongery establishment—which, it was to be hoped, would not come to the same ignoble end. the house had been divided into two dwellings: the one, accessible by the former private entrance, was let to a quiet widow lady and her son, a young man reading for the church; the other had been opened in all the grandeur and glory of highly-polished steel and iron. not one of the godolphins could pass it without a keen heart-pang, but the general public were content to congregate and admire as long as the novelty lasted.
the great crash, which had so upset the equanimity of prior’s ash, was beginning to be forgotten as a thing of the past. the bankruptcy was at an end—excepting some remaining formal proceedings which did not at all concern the general public, and not much the creditors. compassion for those who had been injured by the calamity was dying out: many a home had been rendered needy—many desolate; but outside people do not make these uncomfortable facts any lasting concern of theirs. there were only two who did make them so, in regard to prior’s ash; and they would make them so as long as their lives should last.
george godolphin’s wife was lying in her poor lodgings, and thomas was dying at ashlydyat. dying so slowly and imperceptibly that the passage to the grave was smoothed, and the town began to say that he might yet recover. the wrong inflicted upon others, however unwillingly on his own part, the distress rife in many a house around, was ever present to him. it was ever present to maria. some of those who had lost were able to bear it; but there were others upon whom it had brought privation, poverty, utter ruin. it was for these last that the sting was felt.
[395]a little boy had been born to maria, and had died at the end of a few days. he was baptized thomas. “name him thomas: it will be a remembrance of my brother,” george godolphin had said. but the young thomas died before the elder one. the same disorder which had taken off two of maria’s other infants took him off—convulsions. “best that it should be so,” said maria, with closed eyes and folded hands.
somehow she could not grow strong again. lying in bed, sick and weak, she had time to ruminate upon the misfortunes which had befallen them: the bitter, hopeless reminiscence of the past, the trouble and care of the present, the uncertainty of the future. to dwell upon such themes is not good for the strongest frame; but for the weak it is worse than can be described. whether it was that, or whether it was a tendency to keep ill, which might have arisen without any mental trouble at all, maria did not grow strong. mr. snow sent her no end of tonics; he ordered her all kinds of dainties; he sat and chatted and joked with her by the half-hour together: and it availed not. she was about again, as the saying runs, but she remained lamentably weak. “you don’t make an effort to rouse yourself,” mr. snow would say, rapping his stick in displeasure upon the floor as he spoke. well, perhaps she did not: the simple fact was, that there was neither health nor spirit within her to make the effort.
circumstances were cruelly against her. she might have battled with the bankruptcy—with the shock and the disgrace; she might have battled with the discomforts of their fallen position, with the painful consciousness of the distress cast upon many a home, with the humiliation dealt out to herself as her own special portion by the pious pharisees around; she might have battled with the vague prospects of the future, hopeless though they looked: women equally sensitive, good, refined as maria, have had to contend with all this, and have survived it. but what maria could not battle with; what had told upon her heart and her spirit more than all the rest, was that dreadful shock touching her husband. she had loved him passionately, she had trusted him wholly; in her blind faith she had never cast as much as a thought to the possibility that he could be untrue to his allegiance: and she had been obliged to learn that—infidelity forms part of a man’s frail nature. it had dashed to the ground the faith and love of years; it had outraged every feeling of her heart; it seemed to have destroyed her trust in all mankind. implicit faith! pure love! trust that she had deemed stronger than death!—all had been rent in one moment, and the shock had been greater than was her strength to endure. it was just as when one cuts a cord asunder. anything, anything but this! she could have borne with george in his crime and disgrace, and clung to him when the world shunned him; had he been sent out to van diemen’s land, the felon that he might have been, she could have crept by his side and loved him still. but this was different. to a woman of refined feeling, as was maria, loving trustingly, it was as the very sharpest point of human agony. it must be so. she had reposed calmly in the belief that she was all in all to him: and she awoke to find that she was no more to him than were others. they had lived, as she fondly thought, in a world of their own, a world of[396] tenderness, of love, of unity; she and he alone; and now she learnt that his world at least had not been so exclusive. apart from more sacred feelings that were outraged, it brought to her the most bitter humiliation. she seemed to have sunk down to a level she scarcely knew with what. it was not the broad and bare infidelity: at that a gentlewoman scarcely likes to glance; but it was the fading away of all the purity and romance which had enshrined them round, as with a halo, they alone, apart from the world. in one unexpected moment, as a flash of lightning will blast a forest tree and strip it of its foliage, leaving it bare—withered—helpless—so had that blow rent the heart’s life of maria godolphin. and she did not grow strong.
yes. thomas godolphin was dying at ashlydyat, maria was breaking her heart in her lonely lodgings, prior’s ash was suffering in its homes; but where was the cause of it all—mr. george? mr. george was in london. looking after something to do, he told maria. probably he was. he knew that he had his wife and child upon his hands, and that something must be done, and speedily, or the wolf would come to the door. lord averil, good and forgiving as was thomas godolphin, had promised george to try and get him some post abroad—for george had confessed to him that he did not care to remain in england. but the prospect was a remote one at best: and it was necessary that george should exert himself while it came. so he was in town looking after the something, and meanwhile not by any means breaking his heart in regrets, or living as an anchorite up in a garret. maria heard from him, and of him. once a week, at least, he wrote to her, sometimes oftener; affectionate and gay letters. loving words to herself, kisses and stories for meta, teasings and jokes for margery. he was friendly with the verralls—which prior’s ash wondered at; and would now and then be seen riding in the park with mrs. charlotte pain—the gossip of which was duly chronicled to maria by her gossiping acquaintance. maria was silent on the one subject, but she did write a word of remonstrance to him about his friendship with mr. verrall. it was scarcely seemly, she intimated, after what people had said. george wrote her word back that she knew nothing about it; that people had taken up a false notion altogether. verrall was a good fellow at heart; what had happened was not his fault, but the fault of certain men with whom he, verrall, had been connected; and verrall was showing himself a good friend now, and he did not know what he should do without him.
“a warm bright day like this, and i find you moping and stewing on that sofa! i’ll tell you what it is, mrs. george godolphin, you are trying to make yourself into a chronic invalid.”
mr. snow’s voice, in its serio-comic accent, might be heard at the top of the house as he spoke. it was his way.
“i am better than i was,” answered maria. “i shall get well some time.”
“some time! it’s to be hoped you will. but you are not doing much yourself towards it. have the french left you a cloak and bonnet, pray?”
maria smiled at his joke. she knew he alluded to the bankruptcy commissioners. when mr. snow was a boy, the english and french[397] were at war, and he generally used the word french in a jesting way to designate enemies.
“they left me all,” she said.
“then be so good as to put them on. i don’t terminate this visit until i have seen you out of doors.”
to contend would be more trouble than to obey. she wrapped herself up and went out with mr. snow. her steps were almost too feeble to walk alone.
“see the lovely day it is! and you, an invalid, suffering from nothing but dumps, not to be out in it! it’s nearly as warm as september. halloa, young lady! are you planting cabbages?”
they had turned an angle and come upon miss meta. she was digging away with a child’s spade, scattering mould over the path; her woollen shawl, put on for warmth, had turned round, and her hat had fallen back, with the ardour of her labours. david jekyl, who was digging to more purpose close by, was grumbling at the scattered mould on his clean paths.
“i’ll sweep it up, david: i’ll sweep it up!” the young lady said.
“fine sweeping it ’ud be!” grunted david.
“i declare it’s as warm as summer in this path!” cried mr. snow. “now mind, mrs. george, you shall stay here for half an hour; and if you grow tired there’s a bench to sit upon. little damsel, if mamma goes indoors, you tell me the next time i come. she is to stay out.”
“i’ll not tell of mamma,” said meta, throwing down her spade and turning her earnest eyes, her rosy cheeks, full on mr. snow.
he laughed as he walked away. “you are to stay out for the half-hour, mind you, mrs. george. i insist upon it.”
direct disobedience would not have been expedient, if only in the light of example to meta; but maria had rather been out on any other day, or been ordered to any other path. this was the first time she had seen david jekyl since the bank had failed, and his father’s loss was very present to her.
“how are you, david?” she inquired.
“i’m among the middlins,” shortly answered david.
“and your father? i heard he was ill.”
“so he is ill. he couldn’t be worser.”
“i suppose the coming winter is against him?”
“other things are again him as well as the coming winter,” returned david. “fretting, for one.”
ah, how bitter it all was! but david did not mean to allude in any offensive manner to the past, or to hurt the feelings of george godolphin’s wife. it was his way.
“is jonathan better?” she asked.
“he isn’t of much account, since he got that hurt,” was david’s answer. “doing about three days’ work in a week! it’s to be hoped times ’ll mend.”
maria walked slowly to and fro in the sunny path, saying a word or two to david now and then, but choosing safer subjects; the weather, the flowers under his charge, the vegetables already nipped with frost. she looked very ill. her face thin and white, her soft sweet eyes larger and darker than was natural. her hands were wrapped in the[398] cloak for warmth, and her steps were unequal. crusty david actually ventured on a little bit of civility.
“you don’t seem to get about over quick, ma’am.”
“not very, david. but i feel better than i did.”
she sat down on the bench, and meta came flying to her, spade in hand. might she plant a gooseberry-tree, and have all the gooseberries off it next year for herself?
maria stroked the child’s hair from her flushed face as she answered. meta flew off to find the “tree;” and maria sat on, plunged in a train of thought which the question had led to. where should they be at the gooseberry season next year? in that same dwelling? would george’s prospects have become more certain then?
“now then! is that the way you dig?”
the sharp words came from margery, who had looked out at the kitchen window and caught sight of miss meta rolling in the mould. the child jumped up laughing, and ran into the house for her skipping-rope.
“have i been out half an hour, do you think, david?” maria asked by-and-by.
“near upon ’t,” said david, without lifting his eyes.
she rose to pursue her way slowly indoors. she was so fatigued—and there had been, so to say, no exertion—that she felt as if she could never stir out again. merely putting on and taking off her cloak was almost beyond her. she let it fall from her shoulders, took off her bonnet, and sank into an easy-chair.
from this she was aroused by hearing the gate hastily opened. quick footsteps came up the path, and a manly voice said something to david jekyl in a free, joking tone. she bounded up, her cheek flushing to hectic, her heart beating. could it be george?
no; it was her brother, reginald hastings. he came in with a great deal of unnecessary noise and clatter. he had arrived from london only that morning, he proceeded to tell maria, and was going up again by the night train.
“i say, maria, how ill you look!”
very ill indeed just then. the excitement of sudden expectation had faded, leaving her whiter than before. dark circles were round her eyes, and her delicate hands, more feeble, more slender than of yore, moved restlessly on her lap.
“i have been very feverish the last few weeks,” she said. “i think i am stronger. but i have been out for a walk and am tired.”
“what did the little shaver die of?” asked reginald.
“of convulsions,” she answered, her bodily weariness too great to speak in anything but tones of apathy. “why are you going up again so soon? have you a ship?”
reginald nodded. “we have orders to join to-morrow at twelve. the mary, bound for china, six hundred tons. i know the mother would never forgive me if i didn’t come to say good-bye, so i thought i would have two nights of it in the train.”
“are you going as second officer, reginald?”
“second officer!—no. i have not passed.”
“regy!”
[399]“they are a confounded lot, that board!” broke out mr. reginald, explosively. “i don’t believe they know their own business. and as to passing any one without once turning him, they won’t do it. i should like to know who has the money! you pay your guinea, and you don’t pass. come up again next monday, they say. well, you do go up again, as you want to pass; and you pay another half-guinea. i did so; and they turned me again; said i didn’t know seamanship. the owls! not know seamanship! i! they took me, i expect, for one of those dainty middies in green’s service who walk the deck in kid gloves all day. if there’s one thing i have at my fingers’ ends it is seamanship. i could navigate a vessel all over the world—and be hanged to the idiots! you can come again next monday, they said to me. i wish the times would show them up!”
“did you go again?”
“did i!—no,” fumed reginald. “just to add to their pockets by another half-guinea! i hadn’t it to give, maria. i just flung the whole lot over, and went down to the first ship in the docks and engaged myself.”
“as what?” she asked.
“as a. b.”
“a. b.?” repeated maria, puzzled. “you don’t mean—surely you don’t mean before the mast?”
“yes i do.”
“oh, reginald!”
“it doesn’t make much difference,” cried reginald in slighting tones. “the second mates in some of those ships are not much better off than the seamen. you must work, and the food’s pretty much the same, except at the skipper’s table. let a fellow rise to be first mate, and he is in tolerably smooth water; but until then he must rough it. after this voyage i’ll go up again.”
“but you might have shipped as third mate.”
“i might—if i had taken my time to find a berth. but who was to keep me the while? it takes fifteen shillings a week at the sailors’ home, besides odds and ends for yourself that you can’t do without—smoke and things. i couldn’t bear to ask them for more at home. only think how long i’ve been on shore this time, maria. i was knocking about london for weeks over my navigation, preparing to pass.—and for the mummies to turn me at last!”
maria sighed. poor reginald’s gloomy prospects were bringing her pain.
“there’s another thing, maria,” he resumed. “if i had passed for second mate, i don’t see how i could go out as such. where was my outfit to come from? an officer—if he is on anything of a ship—must look spruce, and have proper toggery. i am quite certain that to go out as second mate on a good ship would have cost me twenty pounds, for additional things that i couldn’t do without. you can’t get a sextant under three pounds, second-hand, if it’s worth having. you know i never could have come upon them for twenty pounds at home, under their altered circumstances.”
maria made no reply. every word was going to her heart.
“whereas, in shipping as a common seaman, i don’t want to take[400] much more than you might tie up in a handkerchief. a fo’castle fellow can shift any way aboard. and there’s one advantage,” ingenuously added reginald; “if i take no traps out with me, i can’t lose them.”
“but the discomfort?” breathed maria.
“there’s enough of that in any way, at sea. a little more or less is not of much account in the long-run. it’s all in the voyage. i wish i had never been such a fool as to choose the sea. but i did choose it; so it’s of no use kicking against it now.”
“i wish you were not going as you are!” said maria earnestly. “i wish you had shipped as third mate!”
“when a sailor can’t afford the time to ship as he would, he must ship as he can. many a hundred has done the same before me. to one third mate wanted in the port of london, there are scores and scores of able seamen.”
“what does mamma say to it?”
“well, you know she can’t afford to be fastidious now. she cried a bit, but i told her i should be all right. hard work and fo’castle living won’t break bones. the parson told me——”
“don’t, reginald!”
“papa, then. he told me it was a move in the right direction, and if i would only go on so, i might make up for past shortcomings. i say, isaac told me to give you his love.”
“did you see much of him?”
“no. on a sunday now and then. he doesn’t much like his new post. they are dreadfully over-worked, he says. it’s quite a different thing from what the bank was down here.”
“will he stop in it?”
“oh, he’ll stop in it. glad, too. it won’t answer for him to be doing nothing, when they can hardly keep themselves at home with the little money screwed out from what’s put aside for the chisholms.”
reginald never meant to hurt her. he only spoke so in his thoughtlessness. he rattled on.
“i saw george godolphin last week. it was on the monday, the day that swindling board first turned me back. i flung the books anywhere, and went out miles, to walk my passion off. i got into the park, to rotten row. it’s precious empty at this season, not more than a dozen horses in it; but who should be coming along but george godolphin and mrs. pain with a groom behind them. she was riding that beautiful horse of hers that she used to cut a dash with here in the summer; the one that folks said george gave——” incautious reginald coughed down the conclusion of his sentence, whistled a bar or two of a sea-song, and then resumed:
“george was well mounted, too.”
“did you speak to them?” asked maria.
“of course i did,” replied reginald, with some surprise. “and mrs. pain began scolding me for not having been to see her and the verralls. she made me promise to go the next evening. they live at a pretty place on the banks of the thames. you take the rail at waterloo station.”
[401]“did you go?”
“well, i did, as i had promised. but i didn’t care much about it. i had been at my books all day again, and in the evening, quite late, i started. when i got there i found it was a tea-fight.”
“a tea-fight!” echoed maria, rather uncertain what the expression might mean.
“a regular tea-fight,” repeated reginald. “a dozen folks, mostly ladies, dressed up to the nines: and there was i in my worn-out sailor’s jacket. charlotte began blowing me up for not coming to dinner, and she made me go into the dining-room and had it brought up for me. lots of good things! i haven’t tasted such a dinner since i’ve been on shore. verrall gave me some champagne.”
“was george there?” inquired maria, putting the question with apparent indifference.
“no, george wasn’t there. charlotte said if she had thought of it she’d have invited isaac to meet me: but isaac was shy of them, she added, and had never been down once, though she asked him several times. she’s a good-natured one, maria, is that charlotte pain.”
“yes,” quietly responded maria.
“she told me she knew how young sailors get out of money in london, and she shouldn’t think of my standing the cost of responding to her invitation; and she gave me a sovereign.”
maria’s cheeks burnt. “you did not take it, reginald?”
“didn’t i! it was quite a godsend. you don’t know how scarce money has been with me. things have altered, you know, maria. and mrs. pain knows it too, and she has no stuck-up nonsense about her. she made me promise to go and see them when i had passed.—but i have not passed,” added reginald, by way of parenthesis. “and she said if i was at fault for a home the next time i was looking out for a ship, she’d give me one, and be happy to see me. and i thought it was very kind of her; for i am sure she meant it. oh—by the way—she said she thought you’d let her have meta up for a few weeks.”
maria involuntarily stretched out her hand—as if meta were there, and she would clasp her and withhold her from some threatened danger. reginald rose.
“you are not going yet, regy?”
“i must. i only ran in for a few minutes. there’s grace to see and fifty more folks, and they’ll expect me home to dinner. i’ll say good-bye to meta as i go through the garden. i saw she was there; but she did not see me.”
he bent to kiss her. maria held his hand in hers. “i shall be thinking of you always, reginald. if you were only going under happier circumstances!”
“never mind me, maria. it will be uphill work with most of us, i suppose, for a time. i thought it the best thing i could do. i couldn’t bear to come upon them for more money at home.”
“yours will be a hard life.”
“a sailor’s is that, at best. don’t worry about me. i shall make it out somehow. you make haste, maria, and get strong. i’m sure you look ill enough to frighten people.”
[402]she pressed his hands between hers, and the tears were filling her eyes as she raised them—their expression one wild yearning. “reginald, try and do your duty,” she whispered in an imploring tone. “think always of heaven, and try and work for it. it may be very near. i have learned to think of it a great deal now.”
“it’s all right, maria,” was the careless and characteristic answer. “it’s a religious ship i’m going in this time. we have had to sign articles for divine service on board at half-past ten every sunday morning.”
he kissed her several times, and the door closed upon him. as maria lay back in her chair, she heard his voice outside for some time afterwards laughing and talking with meta, largely promising her a ship-load of monkeys, parrots, and various other live wonders.
in this way or that, she was continually being reminded of the unhappy past and their share in it; she was perpetually having brought before her its disastrous effects upon others. poor reginald! entering upon his hard life! this need not have been, had means not grown scarce at home. maria loved him best of all her brothers, and her very soul seemed to ache with its remorse. and by some means or other, she was, as you see, frequently learning that mr. george was not breaking his heart with remorse. the suffering in all ways fell upon her.
and the time went on, and maria godolphin grew no stronger. it went on, and instead of growing stronger she grew weaker. mr. snow could do nothing more than he had done; he sent her tonic medicines still, and called upon her now and then, as a friend more than as a doctor. the strain was on the mind, he concluded, and time alone would heal it.
but maria was worse than mr. snow or any one else thought. she had been always so delicate-looking, so gentle, that her wan face, her sunken spirits, attracted less attention than they would have done in one of a more robust nature. no one glanced at the possibility of danger. margery’s expressed opinion, “my mistress only wants rousing,” was the one universally adopted: and there may have been truth in it.
all question of maria’s going out of doors was over now. she was really not equal to it. she would lie for hours together on her sofa, the little child meta gathered in her arms. meta appeared to have changed her very nature. instead of dancing about incessantly, running into every mischief, she was content to nestle to her mother’s bosom and listen to her whispered words, as if some foreshadowing were on her spirit that she might not long have a mother to nestle to.
you must not think that maria conformed to the usages of an invalid. she was up before breakfast in the morning, she did not go to bed until the usual hour at night, and she sat down to the customary meals with meta. she has risen from the breakfast-table now, on this fine morning, not at all cold for late autumn, and margery has carried away the breakfast-things, and has told miss meta that if she will come out as soon as her mamma has read to her, and have her things put on, she may go and play in the garden.
but when the little bible story was over, her mamma lay down on[403] the sofa, and meta appeared inclined to do the same. she nestled on to it, and lay down too, and kissed her mamma’s face, so pretty still, and began to chatter. it was a charming day, the sun shining on the few late flowers, the sky blue and bright.
“did you hear margery say you might go out and play, darling? see how fine it is.”
“there’s nothing to play with,” said meta.
“there are many things, dear. your skipping-rope and hoop, and——”
“i’m tired of them,” interposed meta. “mamma, i wish you’d come out and play at something with me.”
“i couldn’t run, dear. i am not strong enough.”
“when shall you be strong enough? how long will it be before you get well?”
maria did not answer. she lay with her eyes fixed upon the far-off sky, her arm clasped round the child. “meta, darling, i—i—am not sure that i shall get well. i begin to think that i shall never go out with you again.”
meta did not answer. she was looking out also, her eyes staring straight at the blue sky.
“meta, darling,” resumed maria in low tones, “you had two little sisters once, and i cried when they died, but i am glad now that they went. they are in heaven.”
meta looked up more fixedly, and pointed with her finger. “up in the blue sky?”
“yes, up in heaven. meta, i think i am going to them. it is a better world than this.”
“and me too,” quickly cried meta.
maria laid her hand upon her bosom to press down the rising emotion. “meta, meta, if i might only take you with me!” she breathed, straining the child to her in an agony. the prospect of parting, which maria had begun to look at, was indeed hard to bear.
“you can’t go and leave me,” cried meta in alarm. “who’d take care of me, mamma? mamma, do you mean that you are going to die?”
meta burst into tears. maria cried with her. oh reader, reader! do you know what it is, this parting between mother and child? to lay a child in the grave is bitter grief; but to leave it to the mercy of the world!—there is nothing like unto it in human anguish.
maria’s arms were entwined around the little girl, clasping her nervously, as if that might prevent the future parting; the soft rounded cheek was pressed to hers, the golden curls lay around.
“only for a little while, meta. if i go first, it will be only for a little while. you——” maria stopped; her emotion had to be choked down.
“it is a happier world than this, meta,” she resumed, mastering it. “there will be no pain there; no sickness, no sorrow. this world seems made up of sorrow, meta. oh, child! but for god’s love in holding out to our view that other one, we could never bear this, when trouble comes. god took your little sisters and brothers from it: and—i think—he is taking me.”
[404]meta turned her face downwards, and held her mother with a frightened movement, her little fingers clasping the thin arms to pain.
“the winter is coming on here, my child, and the trees will soon be bare; the snow will cover the earth, and we must wrap ourselves up from it. but in that other world there will be no winter; no cold to chill us; no summer heat to exhaust us. it will be a pleasant world, meta; and god will love us.”
meta was crying silently. “let me go too, mamma.”
“in a little while, darling. if god calls me first, it is his will,” she continued, the sobs breaking from her aching heart. “i shall ask him to take care of you after i am gone, and to bring you to me in time; i am asking him always.”
“who’ll be my mamma then?” cried meta, lifting her head in a bustle, as the thought occurred to her.
more pain. maria choked it down, and stroked the golden curls.
“you will have no mamma, then, in this world. only papa.”
meta paused. “will he take me to london, to mrs. pain?”
the startled shock that these simple words brought to maria cannot well be pictured: her breath stood still, her heart beat wildly. “why do you ask that?” she said, her tears suddenly dried.
meta had to collect her childish thoughts to tell why. “when you were in bed ill, and mrs. pain wrote me that pretty letter, she said if papa would take me up to london she’d be my mamma for a little while, in place of you.”
the spell was broken. the happy visions of heaven, of love, had been displaced for maria. she lay quite silent, and in the stillness the bells of all souls’ church were heard ringing out a joyous peal on the morning air. meta clapped her hands and lifted her face, radiant now with glee. moods require not time to change in childhood: now sunshine, now rain. margery opened the door.
“do you hear them, ma’am? the bells for miss cecil. they’re as joyous as the day. i said she’d have it fine, last night, when i found the wind had changed. i can’t bear to hear wedding-bells ring out on a wet day: the two don’t agree. eh me! why, here’s miss rose coming in!”
rose hastings was walking up the path with a quick step, nodding at meta as she came along. that young lady slipped off the sofa, and ran out to meet her, and maria rose up from her sick position, and strove to look her best.
“i have come for meta,” said rose, as she entered. “mamma thinks she would like to see the wedding.—will you let her come, maria?”
maria hesitated. “to the church, do you mean? suppose she should not be good?”
“i will be good,” said meta, in a high state of delight at the prospect. “mamma, i’ll be very good.”
she went with margery to be dressed. rose turned to her sister. “are you pretty well this morning, maria?”
“pretty well, rose. i cannot boast of much strength yet.”
“i wish you would return with me and meta. mamma told me to try and bring you. to spend the day with us will be a change, and you need not go near the church.”
[405]“i don’t feel equal to it, rose. i should not have strength to walk. tell mamma so, with my dear love.”
“only fancy!—she is to be married in a bonnet!” exclaimed rose with indignation. “a bonnet and a grey dress. i wonder lord averil consented to it! i should hardly call it a wedding. a bonnet!—and no breakfast!—and bessy godolphin and lord averil’s sister, who is older if anything than bessy, for bridesmaids!”
“and only one clergyman,” added maria, her lips parting with a smile. “do you think the marriage will stand good, rose?”
rose felt inclined to resent the joke, for maria was laughing at her. but meta came in, full of bustling excitement, eager to be gone. she kissed her mamma in careless haste, and was impatient because rose lingered to say a word. maria watched her down the path; her face and eyes sparkling, her feet dancing with eagerness, her laughter ringing on the air.
“she has forgotten already her tears for the parting that must come,” murmured maria. “how soon, i wonder, after i shall be gone, will she forget me?”
she laid her temples lightly against the window-frame, as she looked dreamily at the blue sky; as she listened dreamily to the sweet bells that rang out so merrily in the ears of prior’s ash.
