The Shadow of Ashlydyat Part 96

Isaac answered lightly and evasively. He was aware that such suspicions were afloat with the clerks. Chiefly led to by that application from the stranger, and his rude and significant charges, made so publicly. Isaac had not been present at that application. It was somewhat curious, perhaps--for a freemasonry runs amidst the clerks of an establishment, and they talk freely one with another--that he never heard of it until after the stoppage of the firm. If he had heard of it, he would certainly have told his father. But whatever suspicions he and his fellow-clerks might be entertaining against George G.o.dolphin, he was not going to speak of them to Grace Akeman.

Grace turned to her mother. "Papa has a thousand pounds or two there, has he not?"

"Ah, child! if that were all!" returned Mrs. Hastings, with a groan.

"Why? What more has he there?" asked Grace, startled by the words and the tone. Rose, startled also, turned round to await the answer.

Mrs. Hastings seemed to hesitate. But only for a moment. "I do not know why I should not tell you," she said, looking at her daughters. "Isaac and Reginald both know it. He had just lodged there the trust-money belonging to the Chisholms: nine thousand and forty-five pounds."

A silence fell upon the room. Grace and her sister were too dismayed to speak immediately. Reginald, who had now seated himself astride on a chair, his face and arms over the back of it, set up a soft lugubrious whistle, the tune of some old sea-song, feeling possibly the silence to be uncomfortable. To disclose a little secret, Mr. Reginald was not in the highest of spirits, having been subjected to some hard scolding that day on the part of his father, and some tears on the part of his mother, touching the non-existence of any personal effects. He had arrived at home, for the fourth time since his first departure for sea, baggageless, his luggage consisting exclusively of what he stood up in.

Of everything else belonging to him, he was able to give no account whatever. It is rather a common complaint amongst young sailors. And then he was always changing his ships.

"Is papa responsible for it?" The half-frightened question came from Rose.

"Certainly he is," replied Mrs. Hastings. "If the Bank should _not_ go on, why--we are ruined. As well as those poor children, the Chisholms."

"Oh, mamma! why did he not draw it out this morning?" cried Grace in a tone of pain. "Tom told me that many people were paid in full."

"Had he known the state the Bank was in, that there was anything the matter with it, no doubt he would have drawn it out," returned Mrs.

Hastings.

"Did Maria know it was paid in?"

"Yes."

Grace's eyes flashed fire. Somehow, she was never inclined to be too considerate to Maria. She never had been from their earliest years. "A dutiful daughter! Not to give her father warning!"

"Maria may not have been able to do it," observed Mrs. Hastings.

"Perhaps she did not know that anything was wrong."

"Nonsense, mamma!" was Grace's answer. "We have heard--when a thing like this happens, you know people begin to talk freely, to compare notes, as it were--we have heard that George G.o.dolphin and Maria are owing money all over the town. Maria has not paid her housekeeping bills for ever so long. _Of course_ she must have known what was coming!"

Mrs. Hastings did not dispute the point with Grace. The main fact troubled her too greatly for minor considerations to be very prominent with her yet. She had never found Maria other than a considerate and dutiful daughter: and she must be convinced that she had not been so in this instance, before she could believe it.

"She was afraid of compromising George G.o.dolphin," continued Grace in a bitter tone. "He has ever been first and foremost with her."

"She might have given a warning without compromising him," returned Mrs.

Hastings; but, in making the remark, she did not intend to cast any reflection on Maria. "When your papa went to pay the money in, it was after banking hours. Maria was alone, and he told her what he had brought. Had she been aware of anything wrong, she might have given a hint to him, then and there. It need never have been known to George G.o.dolphin--even that your papa had any intention of paying money in."

"And this was recently?"

"Only a week or two ago."

Grace pushed her shawl more off her shoulders, and beat her knee up and down as she sat on the low stool. Suddenly she turned to Isaac.

"Had _you_ no suspicion that anything was wrong?"

"Yes, a slight one," he incautiously answered. "A doubt, though, more than a suspicion."

Grace took up the admission warmly. "And you could hug the doubt slyly to yourself and never warn your father!" she indignantly uttered. "A fine son you are, Isaac Hastings!"

Isaac was of equable temperament. He did not retort on Grace that he _had_ warned him, but that Mr. Hastings had not acted upon the hint; at least not effectually. "When my father blames me, it will be time enough for you to blame me, Grace," was all he said in answer. "And--in my opinion--it might be just as well if you waited to hear whether Maria deserves blame, before you cast so much on her."

"Pshaw!" returned Grace. "The thing speaks for itself."

Had Grace witnessed the bitter sorrow, the prostration, the uncertainty in which her sister was sunk at that moment, she might have been more charitable in her judgment. Practical and straightforward herself, it would have been as impossible for Grace to remain ignorant of her husband's affairs, pecuniary or else, as it was for her to believe that Maria G.o.dolphin had remained so. And, if fully convinced that such had indeed been the fact, Grace would have deemed her state of contented ignorance to be little less than a crime. She and Maria were as essentially different as two people can well be. Pity but she could have seen Maria then!

Maria was in her dining-room. She had made a pretence of going down to dinner, not to excite the observation and remarks of the servants: in her excessive sensitiveness she could not bear that they should even see she was in grief. Grace, in her place, might have spoken openly and angrily before the household of the state of affairs. Not so Maria: she buried it all within her.

She could not eat. Toying with this plate and that plate, she knew not how to swallow a morsel or to make pretence of doing so, before the servants, standing by. But it came to an end, that dinner, and Maria was left alone.

She sat on, musing; her brain racked with busy thoughts. To one of the strangely refined organization of Maria Hastings, a blow, such as the one fallen, appeared more terrible even than it was. Of the _consequences_ she as yet knew little, could foresee less; therefore they were not much glanced at by her: but of the disgrace Maria took an exaggerated view. Whether the Bank went on again or not, they seemed to have fallen from their high pedestal; and Maria shrank with a visible shudder at the bare thought of meeting her friends and acquaintances; at the idea of going out to show herself in the town.

Many would not have minded it; some would not have looked upon it in the light of a disgrace at all: minds and feelings, I say, are differently const.i.tuted. Take Mrs. Charlotte Pain, for example. Had she enjoyed the honour of being George G.o.dolphin's wife, she would not have shed a tear, or eaten a meal the less, or abstained by so much as a single day from gladdening the eyes of Prior's Ash. Walking, riding, or driving, Charlotte would have shown herself as usual.

Pierce came in. And Maria lifted her head with a start, and made a pretence of looking up quite carelessly, lest the man should see how full of trouble she was.

"Here's that Mrs. Bond at the door, ma'am," he said. "I can't get rid of her. She declares that you gave her leave to call, and said that you would see her."

Maria seemed to grow hot and cold. That the woman had come for her ten-pound note, she felt convinced, induced to it, perhaps, by the misfortune of the day, and--she had it not to give her. Maria would have given a great deal for a ten-pound bank-note then.

"I will see her, Pierce," she said. "Let her come in."

Mrs. Bond, civil and sober to-night, came in, curtseying. Maria--ah, that sensitive heart!--felt quite meek and humbled before her; very different from what she would have felt had she had the money to refund.

Mrs. Bond asked for it civilly.

"I am sorry that I cannot give it to you to-night," answered Maria. "I will send it to you in a day or two."

"You promised, ma'am, that I should have it whenever I axed," said she.

"I know I did," replied Maria. "If I had it in the house I would give it you now. You shall have it next week."

"Can I have it on Monday?" asked Mrs. Bond.

"Yes," answered Maria. "Shall I send it to you?"

"I'd not give you the trouble," said Mrs. Bond. "I'll make bold to step up again and get it, ma'am, on Monday."

"Very well," replied Maria. "If Miss Meta was here, she would ask after the parrot."

"It's beautiful," exclaimed Dame Bond. "It's tail's like a lovely green plume o' feathers. But I ain't got used to its screeching yet. Then I'll be here on Monday, ma'am, if you please."

Maria rang the bell, and Pierce escorted her to the door. To return again on Monday.

Maria G.o.dolphin never deemed that she was not safe in making the promise. Thomas G.o.dolphin would be home then, and she could get the note from him.

And she sat on alone, as before; her mind more troubled, her weary head upon her hand.