The Shadow of Ashlydyat Part 124

There was considerable acidity, not to say sarcasm, in the remark; perhaps not altogether suited to the scene and interview. Good Thomas G.o.dolphin would not see it or appear to notice it. He took Margery's hands in his.

"I never thought once that I should die leaving you in debt, Margery,"

he said, his earnest tone bearing its own emotion. "It was always my intention to bequeath you an annuity that would have kept you from want in your old age. But it has been decreed otherwise; and it is of no use to speak of what might have been. Miss Janet will refund to you by degrees what you have lost in the Bank; and so long as you live you will be welcome to a home with her. She has not much, but----"

"Now never fash yourself about me, Mr. Thomas," interrupted Margery. "I shall do well, I dare say; I'm young enough yet for work, I hope; I shan't starve. Ah, this world's nothing but a pack o' troubles," she added, with a loud sigh. "It has brought its share to you, sir."

"I am on the threshold of a better, Margery," was his quiet answer; "one where troubles cannot enter."

Margery sat for some time on the bench, talking to him. At length she rose to depart, declining the invitation to enter the house or to see the ladies, and Thomas said to her his last farewell.

"My late missis, I remember, looked once or twice during her illness as grey as he does," she cogitated within herself as she went along. "But it strikes me that with him it's death. I've a great mind to ask old Snow what he thinks. If it is so, Mr. George ought to be telegraphed for; they _are_ brothers, after all."

Margery's way led her past the turning to the railway station. A train was just in. She cast an eye on the pa.s.sengers coming from it, and in one of them she saw her master, Mr. George G.o.dolphin.

Margery halted and rubbed her eyes, and almost wondered whether it was a vision. Her mind had been busy with the question, ought he, or ought he not to be telegraphed for? and there he was, before her. Gay, handsome George! with his ever-distinguished _entourage_--I don't know a better word for it in English: his bearing, his attire, his person so essentially the gentleman; his pleasant face and his winning smile.

That smile was directed to Margery as he came up. He bore in his hand a small wicker-work basket, covered with delicate tissue paper. But for the bent of Margery's thoughts at the time, she would not have been particularly surprised at the sight, for Mr. George's visits to Prior's Ash were generally impromptu ones, paid without warning. She met him rather eagerly: speaking of the impulse that had been in her mind--to send a message for him, on account of the state of his brother.

"Is he worse?" asked George eagerly.

"If ever I saw death written in a face, it's written in his, sir,"

returned Margery.

George considered a moment. "I think I will go up to Ashlydyat without loss of time, then," he said, turning back. But he stopped to give the basket into Margery's hands.

"It is for your mistress, Margery. How is she?"

"_She's_ nothing to boast of," replied Margery, in tones and with a stress that might have awakened George's suspicions, had any fears with reference to his wife's state yet penetrated his mind. But they had not.

"I wish she could get a little of life into her, and then health might be the next thing to come," concluded Margery.

"Tell her I shall soon be home." And George G.o.dolphin proceeded to Ashlydyat.

It may be that he had not the faculty for distinguishing the different indications that a countenance gives forth, or it may be that to find his brother sitting in the porch disarmed his doubts, but certainly George saw no reason to endorse the fears expressed by Margery. She had entered into no details, and George had pictured Thomas as in bed. To see him therefore sitting out of doors, quietly reading, certainly lulled all George's present fears.

Not that the ravages in the worn form, the grey look in the pale face, did not strike him as that face was lifted to his; struck him almost with awe. For a few minutes their hands were locked together in silence.

Generous Thomas G.o.dolphin! Never since the proceedings had terminated, the daily details were over, had he breathed a word of the bankruptcy and its unhappiness to George.

"George, I am glad to see you. I have been wishing for you all day. I think you must have been sent here purposely."

"Margery sent me. I met her as I was coming from the train."

It was not to _Margery_ that Thomas G.o.dolphin had alluded--but he let it pa.s.s. "Sent purposely," he repeated aloud. "George, I think the end is very near."

"But you are surely better?" returned George, speaking in impulse.

"Unless you were better, would you be sitting here?"

"Do you remember, George, my mother sat here in the afternoon of the day she died? A feeling came over me to-day that I should enjoy a breath of the open air; but it was not until after they had brought my chair out and I was installed in it, that I thought of my mother. It struck me as being a curious coincidence; almost an omen. Margery recollected the circ.u.mstance, and spoke of it."

The words imparted a strange sensation to George, a shivering dread.

"Are you in much pain, Thomas?" he asked.

"Not much; a little, at times; but the great agony that used to come upon me has quite pa.s.sed. As it did with my mother, you know."

Could George G.o.dolphin help the feeling of bitter contrition that came over him? He had been less than man, lower than human, had he helped it.

Perhaps the full self-reproach of his conduct never came home to him as it came now. With all his faults, his lightness, he loved his brother: and it seemed that it was he--he--who had made the face wan, the hair grey, who had broken the already sufficiently stricken heart, and had sent him to his grave before his time.

"It is my fault," he spoke in his emotion. "But for me, Thomas, you might have been with us, at any rate, another year or two. The trouble has told upon you."

"Yes, it has told upon me," Thomas quietly answered. There was nothing else that he could answer.

"Don't think of it, Thomas," was the imploring prayer. "It cannot be helped now."

"No, it cannot be helped," Thomas rejoined. But he did not add that, even now, it was disturbing his death-bed. "George," he said, pressing his brother's hands, "but that it seems so great an improbability, I would ask you to repay to our poor neighbours and friends what they have lost, should it ever be in your power. Who knows but you may be rich some time? You are young and capable, and the world is before you. If so, think of them; it is my last request to you."

"It would be my own wish to do it," gravely answered George. "But do not think of it now, Thomas; do not let it trouble you."

"It does not trouble me much now. The thought of the wrong inflicted on them is ever present with me, but I am content to leave that, and all else, in the care of the all-powerful, ever-merciful G.o.d. He can recompense better than I could, even had I my energies and life left to me."

There was a pause. George loosed his brother's hands and took the seat on the bench where Margery had sat; the very seat where he had once sat with his two sticks, in his weakness, years before, when the stranger, Mr. Appleby, came up and inquired for Mr. Verrall. Why or wherefore it should have come, George could not tell, but that day flashed over his memory now. Oh, the bitter remembrance! He had been a lightsome man then, without care, free from that depressing incubus that must, or that ought to, weigh down the soul--cruel wrong inflicted on his fellow-toilers in the great journey of life. And now? He had brought the evil of poverty upon himself, the taint of disgrace upon his name; he had driven his sisters from their home; had sent that fair and proud inheritance of the G.o.dolphins, Ashlydyat, into the market; and had hastened the pa.s.sage of his brother to the grave. Ay! dash your bright hair from your brow as you will, George G.o.dolphin!--pa.s.s your cambric handkerchief over your heated face!--you cannot dash away remembrance.

You have done all this, and the consciousness is very present with you.

Thomas G.o.dolphin interrupted his reflections, bending towards George his wasted features. "George, what are your prospects?"

"I have tried to get into something or other in London, but my trying has been useless. All places that are worth having are so soon snapped up. I have been offered a post in Calcutta, and I think I shall accept it. If I find that Maria has no objection to go out, I shall: I came down to-day to talk it over with her."

"Is it through Lord Averil?"

"Yes. He wrote to me yesterday morning before he went to church with Cecil. I received the letter by the evening mail, and came off this morning."

"And what is the appointment? Is it in the civil service?"

"Nothing so grand--in sound, at any rate. It's only mercantile. The situation is at an indigo merchant's, or planter's; I am not sure which.

But it's a good appointment; one that a gentleman may accept; and the pay is liberal. Lord Averil urges it upon me. These merchants--they are brothers--are friends of his. If I decline it, he will try for a civil appointment for me; but to obtain one might take a considerable time: and there might be other difficulties in the way."

"Yes," said Thomas shortly. "By the little I can judge, this appears to me to be just what will suit you."

"I think so. If I accept it, I shall have to start with the new year. I saw the agents of the house in town this morning, and they tell me it is quite a first-cla.s.s appointment for a mercantile one. I hope Maria will not dislike to go."

They sat there conversing until the sun had set. George pointed out to his brother's notice that the air was growing cold, but Thomas only smiled in answer: it was not the night air, hot or cold, that could any longer affect Thomas G.o.dolphin. But he said that he might as well go in, and took George's arm to support his feeble steps.

"Is no one at home?" inquired George, finding the usual sitting-room empty.

"They are at Lady G.o.dolphin's," replied Thomas, alluding to his sisters.

"Bessy goes there for good next week, and certain arrangements have to be made, so they walked over this afternoon just before you came up."

George sat down. To find his sisters absent was a relief. Since the unhappy explosion, George had always felt as a guilty schoolboy in the presence of Janet. He remained a short time, and then rose to depart.

"I'll come up and see you in the morning, Thomas."