The Shadow of Ashlydyat

“Mr. Verrall is not at home,” said Bessy.

“But she and Charlotte are,” responded George.

“You know you must not be out in the night air, George.”

“I shall be home by sundown, or thereabouts. Not that the night air would hurt me now.”

“You cannot take rich dishes yet,” urged Bessy again.

“Bien entendu. Mrs. Verrall has ordered an array of invalid ones: mutton-broth à l’eau, and boiled whiting au naturel,” responded George, who appeared to have an answer ready for all dissentient propositions.

Janet interposed, looking and speaking very gravely. “George, it will be a great mark of disrespect to Mrs. Briscow, the lifelong friend of your father and your mother, not to be at home to sit at table with her the first day she is here. Only one thing could excuse your absence—urgent business. And, that, you have not to plead.”

George answered tartly. He was weak from his recent illness, and like many others under the same circumstances, did not like being crossed in trifles. “Janet, you are unreasonable. As if it were necessary that I should break a promise, just for the purpose of dining with an old woman! There will be plenty of other days to dine with her. And I shall be at home this evening before you have risen from table.”

“I beg you to speak of Mrs. Briscow with more respect, George. It cannot matter whether you dine at the Verralls’ to-day or another day,” persisted Janet. “I would not say a word against it, were it an engagement of consequence. You can go to the Folly any day.”

“But I choose to go to-day,” said George.

Janet fixed her deep eyes upon him, her gaze full of sad penetration, her voice changed to one of mourning. “Have those women cast a spell upon you, lad?”

It drove away George’s ill-humour. He burst into a laugh, and returned the gaze: openly enough. “Not they, Janet. Mrs. Verrall may have spells to cast, for aught I know: it’s Verrall’s business, not mine: but they have certainly not been directed to me. And Charlotte–”

“Ay,” put in Janet in a lower tone, “what of Charlotte Pain?”

“This, Janet. That I can steer clear of any spells cast by Charlotte Pain. Not but that I admire Charlotte very much,” he added in a spirit of mischief. “I assure you I am quite a slave to her fascinations.”

“Keep you out of her fascinations, lad,” returned Janet in a tone of solemn meaning. “It is my first and best advice to you.”

“I will, Janet, when I find them growing dangerous.”

Janet said no more. There was that expression on her countenance which they well knew; telling of grievous dissatisfaction.

Rising earlier than his strength was as yet equal to, told upon George Godolphin: and by the middle of the day he felt so full of weariness and lassitude, that he was glad to throw himself on to the sofa in the large drawing-room, quiet and unoccupied then, wheeling the couch first of all with his feeble strength, close to the window, that he might be in the sunshine. Its warmth was grateful to him. He dropped asleep, and only woke considerably later, at the entrance of Cecil.

Cecil was dressed for the day, in a thin, flowing black dress, a jet necklace on her slender neck, jet bracelets on her fair arms. A fair flower was Cecilia Godolphin: none fairer within all the precincts of Prior’s Ash. She knelt down by George and kissed him.

“We have been in to glance at you two or three times, George. Margery has prepared something nice for you, and would have aroused you to take it, only she says sleep will do you as much good as food.”

“What’s the time?” asked George, too indolent to take his own watch from his pocket.

“Half-past three.”

“Nonsense!” cried George, partially starting up. “It can’t be so late as that.”

“It is, indeed. Janet has just driven off to the station. Don’t rise this minute: you are hot.”

“I wonder Janet let me sleep so long!”

“Why should she not? Janet has been very busy all day, and very–”

“Cross?” put in George.

“I was going to say silent,” replied Cecil. “You vexed her this morning, George.”

“There was nothing that she need have been vexed at,” responded Mr. George.

Cecil remained for a few moments without speaking. “I think Janet is afraid of Charlotte Pain,” she presently said.

“Afraid of Charlotte Pain! In what way?”

“George”—lowering her voice, and running her fingers caressingly through his bright hair as he lay—“I wish you would let me ask you something.”

“Ask away,” replied George.

“Ay, but will you answer me?”

“That depends,” he laughed. “Ask away, Cely.”

“Is there anything between you and Charlotte Pain?”

“Plenty,” returned George in the lightest possible tone. “As there is between me and a dozen more young ladies. Charlotte, happening to be the nearest, gets most of me just now.”

“Plenty of what?”

“Talking and laughing and gossip. That’s about the extent of it, pretty Cely.”

Cecil wished he would be more serious. “Shall you be likely to marry her?” she breathed.

“Just as likely as I shall be to marry you,” and he spoke seriously now.

Cecil drew a sigh of relief. “Then, George, I will tell you what it is that has helped to vex Janet. You know our servants get talking to Mrs. Verrall’s, and her servants to ours. And the news was brought here that Charlotte Pain has said she should probably be going on a journey: a journey abroad, for six months or so: to some place where she should remain the winter. Margery told Janet: and—and–”

“You construed it, between you, that Charlotte was going to be a partner in my exile! What droll people you must all be!”

“There’s no doubt, George, that Charlotte Pain was heard to say it.”

“I don’t know what she may have been heard to say. It could have borne no reference to my movements. Cecil?”

“Well?”

“Did you ever hear of old Max’s hounds losing their scent?”

“No—I don’t know. What do you mean?”

And while George Godolphin was laughing at her puzzled look, Margery came in. “Are you almost famished, Mr. George? How could you think of dropping off to sleep till you had had something to sustain you?”

“We often do things that we don’t ‘think’ to do, Margery,” quoth he, as he rose from the sofa.

Nothing more true, Mr. George Godolphin.

Ere long he was on his way to Mrs. Verrall’s. Notwithstanding Janet’s displeasure, he had no idea of foregoing his engagement. The society of two attractive women had more charms for listless George than quiet Ashlydyat. It was a lovely afternoon, less hot than it had been of late, and George really enjoyed it. He was beginning to walk so much better. That long sleep had rested and refreshed him, and he believed that he could walk well into Prior’s Ash. “I’ll try it to-morrow,” thought George.

Up the steps, over the terrace, across to the open windows of the Folly. It was the easiest way in, and George was not given to unnecessary ceremony. He supposed he might find the ladies in the drawing-room, and he stepped over the threshold.

Only one was there. Charlotte. She did not see him enter. She was before a pier-glass, holding up her dog, King Charley, that he might snarl and bark at the imaginary King Charley in the glass. That other dog of hers, the ugly Scotch terrier which you have heard of before, and a third, looking something like a bull-dog, were leaping and howling at her feet. It would appear that nothing pleased Charlotte better than putting her dogs into a fury. Charlotte wore a dark blue silk dress with shaded flounces, and a lighter blue silk jacket: the latter, ornamented with braidings and buttons of silver, somewhat after the fashion of her green riding-habit, and fitting as tightly to the shape. A well-formed shape!—and George Godolphin thought so, as she stood with her arms lifted, setting the dogs at the glass.

“Hi, King! Seize him, Charley! Go at him!—hiss! Tear him! bite him!—hiss-ss-ss!–”

The noisy reception by the other dogs of Mr. George Godolphin, brought the young lady’s words and her pretty employment to a standstill. She released the imprisoned dog from her arms, letting him drop anywhere, and turned to George Godolphin.

“Have you come at last? I had given you up! I expected you an hour and a half ago.”

“And, to while away the time, you set your dogs on to snarl and fight!” returned he, as he took her hand. “I wonder you don’t go distracted with the noise, Charlotte!”

“You don’t like dogs! I often tell you so.”

“Yes, I do—in their proper places.”

Charlotte turned from him with a pout. The terrier jumped upon her.

“Down, Pluto, down! A gentleman here thinks I ought to hold you poor dogs at arm’s length.”

“At the yard’s length, if you please, Charlotte,” corrected George, who did not feel inclined to compromise his opinion. “Hark at them! they might be heard at Prior’s Ash.”

“And his name’s George Godolphin, good Pluto!” went on Charlotte, doing all she possibly could, in a quiet way, to excite the dogs. “Down, then, Pluto! down!”

“I should muzzle you, Mr. Pluto, if you were mine,” cried George, as the dog jumped up at him furiously, and then turned to attack his former adversary. “Pluto!” he continued, meaningly: “who gave him that name, Charlotte?”

“I did,” avowed Charlotte. “And I named this other one King Charley, after his species. And this one is Deuce. What have you to say against the names?”

“Nothing,” said George. “I think them very good, appropriate names,” he added, his lips parting.

They were certainly very good dogs—if to make a most excruciating noise constitutes merit. George Godolphin, his nerves still in a shattered condition, lifted his hand wearily to his forehead. It brought Charlotte Pain to her recollection.

“Oh, George, I forgot! I did, really! I forgot you were not as strong yet as the rest of us. Be quiet, then, you three horrid brutes! Be quiet, will you! Go off, and quarrel outside.”

Using her pointed toe rather liberally, Charlotte set herself to scatter the dogs. They were not very obedient. As soon as one was got out another sprang in, the noise never ceasing. Charlotte snatched up a basket of macaroons that happened to be on a side-table, and scattered the cakes on the terrace. “There, quarrel and fight over those!”

She put down the empty basket, closed the window to shut out the noise, and turned to George. Spreading out her dress on either side, after the manner once in vogue in ancient ballrooms she dropped him an elaborate curtsey.

“Mr. George Godolphin, what honour do you suppose is thrust upon me to-day?”

“You must tell me, Charlotte, if it’s one you wish me to know,” he answered. “I can never attempt to guess when I feel tired; as I do now.”

“Your walk has tired you?”

“I suppose it has. Though I thought how well I felt as I came along.”

“The great honour of entertaining you all by my own self is delegated to me,” cried Charlotte gaily, dropping another curtsey. “I hope we shall not quarrel, as those dogs are doing.”

“The honour of entertaining me!” he repeated, not grasping her meaning. “Entertaining me for what?”

“For dinner, sir. Mrs. Verrall has gone to London.”

“No!” he exclaimed. He did not believe her.

Charlotte nodded. “She went at midday.”

“But what took her away so suddenly?” exclaimed George, in surprise. “She had no intention yesterday of going.”

“A freak. Or, impulse—if you like the word better. Kate rarely acts upon anything else. She has been expecting Verrall home these last three days; but he has neither come nor written: and this morning, after the post was in, she suddenly declared she’d go to town, and see what was keeping him.”

“They may cross each other on the road.”

“Of course they may: and Kate have her journey for her pains. That’s nothing to her: she likes travelling. ‘What am I to do with Mr. George Godolphin? Entertain him?’ I said to her. ‘I suppose you can contrive to do it,’ she answered. ‘I suppose I could,’ I said. ‘But, what about its being proper?’ I asked,” added Charlotte, with a demure glance at George. “‘Oh,’ said Kate, ‘it’s proper enough, poor sick fellow: it would never do to disappoint him.’ Therefore, sir, please take care that you behave properly, considering that a young lady is your hostess.”

She threw a laughing glance at George; and, sitting down at the table, took a pack of beautifully painted cards from an ivory box, and began that delectable game that the French call “Patience.” George watched her from the sofa where he was sitting. A certain thought had darted into his mind. What fit of prudence called it up? Did he think of Charlotte’s good?—or of his own? Did the recollection of what Cecil had whispered actuate him? It cannot be told. It was very far indeed from George Godolphin’s intention to make a wife of Charlotte Pain, and he may have deemed it well to avoid all situations where he might compromise himself by a hasty word. Such words are more easily dropped than taken up again. Or perhaps George, free and careless though he was, reflected that it was not altogether the thing for Charlotte Pain to entertain him alone. With all his faults, George Godolphin was a gentleman: and Charlotte was not altogether fitted for a gentleman’s wife.

“I am glad of it, Charlotte,” he remarked. “I shall now have to make excuses to one only, instead of to two. I came to ask Mrs. Verrall to allow me to break through my engagement.”

Charlotte had a knave in her hand, pondering where she could place it. She dropped it in her surprise.

“I must dine at home to-day, Charlotte. An old friend of my father and mother’s, Mrs. Briscow, is arriving for dinner. I cannot be absent.”

The flush deepened on Charlotte’s face. “It is unkind of you!” she resentfully said. “But I knew before what your promises are worth.”

“Unkind? But, Charlotte, I did not know until this morning that Mrs. Briscow was coming to-day. There’s nothing unkind about it.”

“It is unkind!” flashed Charlotte. “If you were not unkind, you would not leave me here alone, to pass a solitary evening and play at this wretched ‘patience.’”

“But I am not going to leave you here. I wish to take you back with me to Ashlydyat to dinner. If you will put on your bonnet, we can be walking thither at once.”

“You did not come intending to ask me.”

“I did not. I did not know that Mrs. Verrall would be absent. But I ask you now, being alone as you say. And I intend to take you.”

“What will Miss Godolphin say?”

“Miss Godolphin will be very happy to see you.” Which little assertion Mr. George knew to contain more politeness than truth. “Will you get ready, Charlotte? I must be returning.”

Charlotte pushed the cards from her in a heap, and came and stood before George Godolphin, turning herself about for his inspection. “Shall I do without further embellishment?” she asked.

“Admirably,” was the gallant answer. “Why dress more for Ashlydyat than you would for home?”

Charlotte marched to the glass and surveyed herself. “Just something in my hair,” she said, ringing the bell.

A maid came in by her desire, and fastened some blue and silver flowers in her hair. Charlotte Pain wore her hair capriciously: rarely two days alike. To-day it was all strained back from the face, that most trying of all styles, let the features be ever so pretty. A shawl was thrown over her shoulders, and then she turned to George.

“I am ready now.”

“But your bonnet?” returned that gentleman, who had looked on with laughing eyes at the mysteries of the hair-dressing.

“I shall not put on a bonnet,” she said. “They can bring it to me to Ashlydyat, for returning at night. People won’t meet us: the road’s not a public road. And if they should meet us,” she added, laughing, “they will rejoice in the opportunity of seeing me abroad like this. It will be food for Prior’s Ash.”

So they started. Charlotte would not take his arm: she said he must take hers: he needed support and she did not. That, George would not agree to: and they strolled on, side by side, resting on benches occasionally. George found he had not much to boast of yet, in the way of strength.

“Who’s this, coming up?” exclaimed Charlotte, when they had almost gained Ashlydyat, and were resting for the last time.

George followed the direction of her eyes. Advancing towards Ashlydyat was a lady, her grey silk dress gleaming in the sun, a light Cashmere shawl folded round her. There was no mistaking the ladylike figure of Mrs. Hastings.

“Is she to be one of your dinner-party?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

Mrs. Hastings joined them. She sat down on a bench by George’s side, affectionately inquiring into his state of health, speaking kindly and truthfully her pleasure at seeing him, so far, well again. Whatever prejudice may have been taken against George Godolphin by the Rector of All Souls’, it did not extend to his wife. She liked him much.

“I am getting on famously,” said George, in a merry tone. “I have promoted myself now to one stick: until yesterday I was forced to use two. You are going to Ashlydyat, Mrs. Hastings?”

“I wish to say a few words to Bessy. We have discovered something unpleasant relating to one of the schools, in which the under-mistress is mixed up. A good deal of deceit has been going on, in fact. Mr. Hastings says Bessy ought to hear of it at once, for she was as much interested in it as we are. So I came up.”

Mrs. Hastings, in speaking, had taken two or three glances at Charlotte’s head. That young lady set herself to explain. Mr. George Godolphin had given her an impromptu invitation to go back with him to dine at Ashlydyat.

Then George explained. He had been engaged to dine at the Folly: but found, on arriving, that Mrs. Verrall had departed for London. “My friends are all kind to me, Mrs. Hastings,” he observed. “They insist upon it that a change of a few hours must benefit me, and encumber themselves with the trouble of a fanciful invalid.”

“I am sure there’s nothing like change and amusement for one growing convalescent,” said Charlotte.

“Will you let us contribute in some little way to it?” asked Mrs. Hastings of George. “If a few hours’ sojourn in our quiet house would be agreeable to you, you know that we should only be too happy for you to try it.”

“I should like it of all things,” cried George, impulsively, “I cannot walk far yet without resting, and it is pleasant to sit a few hours at my walk’s end, before I begin to start back again. I shall soon extend my journeys to Prior’s Ash.”

“Then come to us the first day that you feel able to get as far. You will always find some of us at home. We will dine at any hour you like, and you shall choose your own dinner.”

“A bargain,” said George.

They rose to pursue their way to Ashlydyat. Mrs. Hastings offered her arm to George, and he took it with thanks. “He would not take mine!” thought Charlotte, and she flashed an angry glance at him.

The fact was, that for some considerable time Charlotte Pain had put Maria Hastings almost out of her head, as regarded her relations to George Godolphin. Whatever reason she may have seen at Broomhead to believe he was attached to Maria, the impression had since faded away. In the spring, before his illness, George had been much more with her than with Maria. This was not entirely George’s fault: the Rectory did not court him: Charlotte Pain and the Folly did. A week had now passed since Mr. Verrall’s departure for town, when George and his sticks appeared at the Folly for the first time after his illness; and, not a day of that week since but George and Charlotte had met. Altogether, her hopes of winning the prize had gone up to enthusiastic heat; and Charlotte believed the greatest prize in the world—taking all his advantages collectively—to be George Godolphin. George went at once to his sister Janet’s chamber. She was in it, dressing for dinner, after bringing her aged guest, Mrs. Briscow, from the station. He knocked at the door with his stick, and was told to enter.

Janet was before the glass in her black silk dress, trimmed heavily with crape still. She was putting on her sober cap, a white one, with black ribbons. Janet Godolphin had taken to wear caps at thirty years of age: her hair, like Thomas’s, was thin; and she was not troubled with cares of making herself appear younger than she was.

“Come in, George,” she said, turning to him without any appearance of surprise.

“See how good I am, Janet!” he cried, throwing himself wearily into a chair. “I have come back to dine with you.”

“I saw you from the window. You have been walking too far!”

“Only to the Folly and back. But I sauntered about, looking at the flowers, and that tires one far worse than bearing on steadily.”

“Ay. Lay yourself down on that couch at full length, lad. Mrs. Hastings is here, I see. And—was that other Charlotte Pain?”

“Yes,” replied George, disregarding the injunction to lie down.

“Did she come from the Folly in that guise?—Nothing on her head but those flowers? I could see no bonnet even in her hand.”

“It is to be sent after her. Janet”—passing quickly from the other matter—“she has come to dine with us.”

Miss Godolphin turned in amazement, and fixed her eyes reproachfully on George. “To dine with us?—to-day? Have you been asking her?”

“Janet, I could not well help myself. When I got to Lady Godolphin’s Folly, I found Charlotte alone: Mrs. Verrall has departed for town. To break through my engagement there, I proposed that Charlotte should come here.”

“Nay,” said Janet, “your engagement was already broken, if Mrs. Verrall was away.”

“Not so. Charlotte expected me to remain.”

“Herself your sole entertainer?”

“I suppose so.”

A severe expression arose to Miss Godolphin’s lips, and remained there. “It is most unsuitable, Charlotte Pain’s being here to-day,” she resumed. “The changes which have taken place render our meeting with Mrs. Briscow a sad one; no stranger ought to be at table. Least of all, Charlotte Pain. Her conversation is at times unfeminine.”

“How can you say so, Janet?” he involuntarily exclaimed.

“Should she launch into some of her favourite topics, her horses and her dogs, it will sound unfeminine to Mrs. Briscow’s ears. In her young days—in my days also, George, for the matter of that—these subjects were deemed more suitable to men’s lips than to young women’s. George, had your mother lived, it would have been a sore day to her, the one that brought the news that you had fixed your mind on Charlotte Pain.”

“It was not so to my father, at any rate,” George could not help saying.

“And was it possible that you did not see how Charlotte Pain played her cards before your father?” resumed Janet. “Not a word, that could offend his prejudices as a refined gentleman, did she ever suffer herself to utter. I saw; if you did not.”

“You manage to see a great deal that the rest of us don’t see, Janet. Or you fancy that you do.”

“It is no fancy, lad. I would not like to discourage a thing that you have set your heart upon; I would rather go a mile out of my way than do it: but I stand next door to a mother to you, and I can but warn you that you will repent it, if you ever suffer Charlotte Pain to be more to you than she now is.”

George rose. “Set your mind at rest, Janet. It has never been my intention to marry Charlotte Pain: and—so far as I believe at present—it never will be.”

The dinner went off pleasantly. Mrs. Briscow was a charming old lady, although she was of the “antediluvian” school, and Charlotte was on her best behaviour, and half fascinated Mrs. Briscow. George, like a trespassing child, received several hints from Janet that bed might be desirable for him, but he ingeniously ignored them, and sat on. Charlotte’s bonnet and an attendant arrived, and Thomas Godolphin put on his hat to see her to the Folly.

“I need not trouble you, Mr. Godolphin. I shall not be run away with.”

“I think it will be as well that I should see you do not,” said he, smiling.

It was scarcely dark. The clock had not struck ten, and the night was starlight. Thomas Godolphin gave her his arm, and the maid walked behind them. Arrived at Ashlydyat, he left her. Charlotte stood for a few moments, then turned on her heel and entered the hall. The first thing that caught her notice was a hat; next a travelling coat. They had not been there when she left in the afternoon.

“Then Verrall’s back!” she mentally exclaimed.