The Shadow of Ashlydyat Part 102

"I hear George is off," he continued.

"He has gone to London, Maria informs me," replied Thomas G.o.dolphin.

"Mr. G.o.dolphin, can you sit there and tell me that you had no suspicion of the way things were turning? That this ruin has come on, and you ignorant of it?"

"I had no suspicion; none whatever. None can be more utterly surprised than I. There are moments when a feeling comes over me that it cannot be true."

"Could you live in intimate a.s.sociation with your brother, and not see that he was turning out a rogue and a vagabond?" went on the Rector in his keenest and most cynical tone.

"I knew nothing, I suspected nothing," was the quiet reply of Thomas.

"How _dared_ he take that money from me the other night, when he knew that he was on the verge of ruin?" asked Mr. Hastings. "He took it from me; he never entered it in the books; he applied it, there's no doubt, to his own infamous purposes. When a suspicion was whispered to me afterwards, that the Bank was wrong, I came here to him. I candidly spoke of what I had heard, and asked him to return me the money, as a friend, a relative. Did he return it? No: his answer was a false, plausible a.s.surance that the money and the Bank were alike safe. What does he call it? Robbery? It is worse: it is deceit; fraud; vile swindling. In the old days, many a man has swung for less, Mr.

G.o.dolphin."

Thomas G.o.dolphin could not gainsay it.

"Nine thousand and forty-five pounds!" continued the Rector. "How am I to make it good? How am I to find money only for the education of Chisholm's children? He confided them and their money to me; and how have I repaid the trust?"

Every word he spoke was as a dagger entering the heart of Thomas G.o.dolphin. He could only sit still, and bear. Had the malady that was carrying him to the grave never before shown itself, the days of anguish he had now entered upon would have been sufficient to induce it.

"If I find that Maria knew of this, that she was in league with her husband to deceive me, I shall feel inclined to discard her from my affections from henceforth," resumed the indignant Rector. "It was an unlucky day when I gave my consent to her marrying George G.o.dolphin. I never in my heart liked his addressing her. It must have been instinct warned me against it."

"I am convinced that Maria has known nothing," said Thomas G.o.dolphin, "She----"

Mr. G.o.dolphin stopped. Angry sounds had arisen outside, and presently the door was violently opened, and quite a crowd of clamorous people entered, ready to abuse Thomas G.o.dolphin, George not being there to receive it. There was no question but that that day's work took weeks from his short remaining span of life. Could a man's heart break summarily, Thomas G.o.dolphin's would have broken then. Many men would have retaliated: _he_ felt their griefs, their wrongs, as keenly as they did. They told him of their ruin, of the desolation, the misery it would bring to them, to their wives and families; some spoke in a respectful tone of quiet plaint, some were loud, unreasonable, insulting. They demanded what dividend there would be: some asked in a covert tone to have _their_ bit of money returned in full; some gave vent to most unorthodox language touching George G.o.dolphin; they openly expressed their opinion that Thomas was conniving at his absence; they hinted that he was as culpable as the other.

None of them appeared to glance at the great fact--that Thomas G.o.dolphin was the greatest sufferer of all. If they had lost part of their means, he had lost all his. Did they remember that this terrible misfortune, which they were blaming him for, would leave him a beggar upon the face of the earth? He, a gentleman born to wealth, to Ashlydyat, to a position of standing in the county, to honour, to respect? It had all been rent away by the blow, to leave him homeless and penniless, sick with an incurable malady. Had they only reflected, they might have found that Thomas G.o.dolphin deserved their condolence rather than their abuse.

But they were in no mood to reflect, or to spare him in their angry feelings; they gave vent to all the soreness within them--and perhaps it was excusable.

The Rector of All Souls' had had his say, and strode forth. Making his way to the dining-room, he knocked sharply with his stick on the door, and then entered. Maria rose and came forward: something very like terror on her face. The knock had frightened her: it had conjured up visions of the visitors suggested by Mrs. Charlotte Pain.

"Where is George G.o.dolphin?"

"He is in London, papa," she answered, her heart sinking at the stern tone, the abrupt greeting.

"When do you expect him home?"

"I do not know. He did not tell me when he went; except that he should be home soon. Will you not sit down, papa?"

"No. When I brought that money here the other night, the nine thousand and forty-five pounds," he continued, touching her arm to command her full attention, "could you not have opened your lips to tell me that it would be safer in my own house than in this?"

Maria was seized with inward trembling. She could not bear to be spoken to in that stern tone by her father. "Papa, I could not tell you. I did not know it."

"Do you mean to tell me that you knew nothing--_nothing_--of the state of your husband's affairs? of the ruin that was impending?"

"I knew nothing," she answered. "Until the Bank closed on Sat.u.r.day, I was in total ignorance that anything was wrong. I never had the remotest suspicion of it."

"Then, I think, Maria, you ought to have had it. Rumour says that you owe a great deal of money in the town for your personal necessities, housekeeping and the like."

"There is a good deal owing, I fear," she answered. "George has not given me money to pay regularly of late, as he used to do."

"And did _that_ not serve to open your eyes?"

"No," she faintly said. "I never gave a thought to anything being wrong."

She spoke meekly, softly, just as Thomas G.o.dolphin had spoken. The Rector looked at her pale, sad face, and perhaps a sensation of pity for his daughter came over him, however bitterly he may have felt towards her husband.

"Well, it is a terrible thing for us all," he said in a more kindly voice, as he turned to move away.

"Will you not wait, and sit down, papa?"

"I have not the time now. Good day, Maria."

As he went out, there stood, gathered close against the wall, waiting to go in, Mrs. Bond. Her face was rather red this morning, and a perfume--certainly not of plain waters--might be detected in her vicinity. That snuffy black gown of hers went down in a reverence as he pa.s.sed. The Rector of All Souls' strode on. Care was too great at his heart to allow of his paying attention to extraneous things, even though they appeared in the shape of attractive Mrs. Bond.

Maria G.o.dolphin, her face buried on the sofa cushions, was giving way to the full tide of unhappy thought induced by her father's words, when she became aware that she was not alone. A sound, half a groan, half a sob, coming from the door, aroused her. There stood a lady, in a crushed bonnet and unwholesome stuff gown that had once been black, with a red face, and a perfume of strong waters around her.

Maria rose from the sofa, her heart sinking. How should she meet this woman? how find an excuse for the money which she had not to give? "Good morning, Mrs. Bond."

Mrs. Bond took a few steps forward, and held on by the table. Not that she was past the power of keeping herself upright; her face must be redder than it was, by some degrees, ere she lost that; but she had a knack of holding on to things.

"I have come for my ten-pound note, if you please, ma'am."

Few can imagine what this moment was to Maria G.o.dolphin; for few are endowed with the sensitiveness of temperament, the refined consideration for the feelings of others, the acute sense of justice, which characterized her. Maria would willingly have given a hundred pounds to have had ten then. How she made the revelation, she scarcely knew--that she had not the money that morning to give.

Mrs. Bond's face turned rather defiant. "You told me to come down for it, ma'am."

"I thought I could have given it to you. I am very sorry. I must trouble you to come when Mr. George G.o.dolphin shall have returned home."

"Is he going to return?" asked Mrs. Bond in a quick, hard tone. "Folks is saying that he isn't."

Maria's heart beat painfully at the words. _Was_ he going to return? She could only say aloud that she hoped he would very soon be home.

"But I want my money," resumed Mrs. Bond, standing her ground. "I must have it, ma'am, if you please."

"I have not got it," said Maria. "The very instant I have it, it shall be returned to you."

"I'd make bold to ask, ma'am, what right you had to spend it? Warn't there enough money in the Bank of other folks's as you might have took, without taking mine--which you had promised to keep faithful for me?"

reiterated Mrs. Bond, warming with her subject. "I warn't a deposit in the Bank, as them folks was, and I'd no right to have my money took. I want to pay my rent to-day, and to get in a bit o' food. The house is bare of everything. There's the parrot screeching out for seed."

It is of no use to pursue the interview. Mrs. Bond grew bolder and more abusive. But for having partaken rather freely of that cordial which was giving out its scent upon the atmosphere, she had never so spoken to her clergyman's daughter. Maria received it meekly, her heart aching: she felt very much as did Thomas G.o.dolphin--that she had _earned_ the reproaches. But endurance has its limits: she began to feel really ill; and she saw, besides, that Mrs. Bond appeared to have no intention of departing. Escaping out of the room in the midst of a fiery speech, she encountered Pierce, who was crossing the hall.

"Go into the dining-room, Pierce," she whispered, "and try to get rid of Mrs. Bond. She is not quite herself this morning, and--and--she talks too much. But be kind and civil to her, Pierce: let there be no disturbance."

Her pale face, as she spoke, was lifted to the butler almost pleadingly.

He thought how wan and ill his mistress looked. "I'll manage it, ma'am,"

he said, turning to the dining-room.