The Shadow of Ashlydyat

He hung over her, suppressing his emotion as he best could for her sake; he wiped the death-dews from her brow, fast gathering there. Her eyes never moved from him, her fingers to the last sought to entwine themselves with his. But soon the loving expression of those eyes faded into unconsciousness: they were open still, looking, as it may be, afar off: the recognition of him, her husband, the recollection of earthly things had passed away.

Suddenly there was a movement of the lips, a renewal in a faint degree of strength and energy; and George strove to catch the words. Her voice was dreamy; her eyes looked dreamily at him whom she would never more recognize until they should both have put on immortality.

“And the city has no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light–”

Even as she was speaking, the last words of her voice dropped, and was still. There was no sigh, there was no struggle; had Meta been looking on, the child’s pulses would not have been stirred. Very, very gently had the spirit taken its flight.

George Godolphin let his head fall upon the pillow beside her. In his overwhelming grief for her? or in repentant prayer for himself? He alone knew. Let us leave it with him!

Once more, once more—I cannot help it, if you blame me for relating these things—the death-knell of All Souls’ boomed out over Prior’s Ash. People were rising in the morning when it struck upon their ear, and they held their breath to listen: three times two, and then the quick sharp strokes rang for the recently departed. Then it was for her who was known the previous night to be at the point of death! and they went out of their houses in the bleak winter’s morning, and said to each other, as they took down their shutters, that poor Mrs. George Godolphin had really gone at last.

Poor Mrs. George Godolphin! Ay, they could speak of her considerately, kindly, regretfully now, but did they remember how they had once spoken of her? She had gone to the grave with her pain and sorrow—she had gone with the remembrance of their severe judgment, their harsh words, which had eaten into her too-sensitive heart; she had gone away from them, to be judged by One who would be more merciful than they had been.

Oh, if we could but be less harsh in judging our fellow-pilgrims! I have told you no idle tale, no false story conjured up by a plausible imagination. Prior’s Ash lamented her in a startled sort of manner: their consciences pricked them sorely; and they would have given something to recall her back to life, now it was too late.

They stared at each other, shutters in hand, stunned as it were, with blank faces and repentant hearts. Somehow they had never believed she would really die, even the day before, when it had been talked of as all too probable, they had not fully believed it: she was young and beautiful, and it is not common for such to go. They recalled her in the several stages of her life: their Rector’s daughter, the pretty child who had been born and reared among them, the graceful girl who had given her love to George Godolphin, the most attractive man in Prior’s Ash; the faithful, modest wife, against whose fair fame never a breath of scandal had dared to come. It was all over now: she and her broken heart, her wrongs and her sorrows had been taken from their tender mercies to a land where neither wrongs nor sorrows can penetrate—where the hearts broken here by unkindness are made whole.

When Meta woke in the morning it was considerably beyond her usual hour, the result probably of her late vigil. Jean was in the room, not Margery. A moment’s surprised stare, and then recollection flashed over her. She darted out of bed, her flushed cheeks and her bright eyes raised to Jean.

“I want mamma.”

“Yes, dear,” said Jean evasively. “I’ll dress you, and then you shall go down.”

“Where’s Margery?”

“She has just stepped out on an errand.”

“Is mamma in her room? Is she in her bed?”

“We’ll go and see presently, dear,” repeated Jean with the same evasion.

The worst way that any one can take is to attempt to deceive a thoughtful, sensitive child, whose fears may be already awakened: it is certain to defeat its own ends. Meta knew as well as Jean did that she was being purposely deceived, that there was something to tell which was not being told. She had no very defined idea of death, but a dread came over Meta that her mamma was in some manner gone out of the house, that she should never see her again: she backed from Jean’s hand, dashed the door open, and flew down the stairs. Jean flew after her, crying and calling.

The noise surprised George Godolphin. He was in the parlour at the breakfast-table; sitting at the meal but not touching it. The consternation of Prior’s Ash was great, but that was as nothing in comparison with his. George Godolphin was as a man bewildered. He could not realize the fact. Only four and twenty hours since he had received intimation of the danger, and now she was—there. He could not realize it. Though all yesterday afternoon, since his arrival, he had known there was no hope—though he had seen her die—though he had passed the hours since, lamenting her as much as he could do so in his first stunned state, yet he could not realize it. He was not casting much blame to himself: he was thinking how circumstances had worked against him and against Maria. His mind was yet in a chaos, and it was from this confused state that the noise outside disturbed him. Opening the door, the sight came full upon his view. The child flying down in her white night-dress, her naked feet scarcely touching the stairs, her eyes wild, her hot cheeks flaming, her golden hair entangled as she had slept.

“I want mamma,” she cried, literally springing into his arms, as if for refuge. “Papa, I want mamma.”

She burst into a storm of sobs distressing to hear; she clung to him, her little arms, her whole frame trembling. George, half unmanned, sat down before the fire, and pressed her to him in his strong arms.

“Bring a shawl,” he said to Jean.

A warm grey shawl of chenille which Maria had often lately worn upon her shoulders was found by Jean, and George wrapped it round Meta as she lay in his arms, and he kept her there. Had Margery been present, she would probably have taken the young lady away by force, and dressed her, with a reprimand: but there was only Jean: and George had it all his own way.

He tried to comfort the grieved spirit; the little sobbing bosom that beat against his; but his efforts seemed useless, and the child’s cry never ceased.

“I want mamma; I want to see mamma.”

“Hush, Meta! Mamma”—George had to pause, himself—“mamma’s gone. She–”

The words confirmed all her fears, and she strove to get off his lap in her excitement, interrupting his words. “Let me go and see her, papa! Is she in the grave with Uncle Thomas? Oh, let me go and see it! Grandpapa will show it to me.”

How long it took to soothe her even to comparative calmness, George scarcely knew. He learnt more of Meta’s true nature in that one interview than he had learnt in all her life before: and he saw that he must, in that solemn hour, speak to her as he would to a girl of twice her years.

“Mamma’s gone to heaven, child; she is gone to be an angel with the great God. She would have stayed with us if she could, Meta, but death came and took her. She kissed you; she kissed you, Meta, with her last breath. You were fast asleep: you fell asleep by her side, and I held you to mamma for her last kiss, and soon after that she died.”

Meta had kept still, listening: but now the sobs broke out again.

“Why didn’t they wake me and let me see her? why did they take her away first? Oh, papa, though she is dead, I want to see her; I want to see mamma.”

He felt inclined to take her into the room. Maria was looking very much like herself; far more so than she had looked in the last days of life: there was nothing ghastly, nothing repulsive, as is too often the case with the dead; the sweet face of life looked scarcely less sweet now.

“Mamma that was is there still, Meta,” he said, indicating the next room. “The spirit is gone to heaven; you know that: the body, that which you used to call mamma, will be here yet a little while, and then it will be laid by Uncle Thomas, to wait for the resurrection of the Last Day. Meta, if I should live to come home from India; that is, if I am in my native land when my time comes to die, they will lay me beside her—”

He stopped abruptly. Meta had lifted her head and was looking at him with a wild, questioning expression; as if she could not at first understand or believe his words. “Mamma is there?”

“Yes. But she is dead now, Meta; she is not living.”

“Oh, take me to her! Papa, take me to her!”

“Listen, Meta. Mamma is changed, she looks cold and white, and her eyes are shut, and she does not stir. I would take you in: but I fear—I don’t know whether you would like to look at her.”

But there might be no denial now that the hope had been given; the child would have broken her heart over it. George Godolphin rose; he pressed the little head upon his shoulder, and carried her to the door, the shawl well wound round her body, her warm feet hanging down. Once in the room, he laid his hand upon the golden curls, to insure that the face was not raised until he saw fit that it should be, and bore her straight to the head of the bed. Then, holding her in his arms very tightly that she might feel sensibly his protection, he suffered her to look full upon the white face lying there.

One glance, and Meta turned and buried her head upon him; he could feel her trembling; and he began to question his own wisdom in bringing her in. Another minute, and she looked back and took a longer gaze.

“That’s not mamma,” she said, bursting into tears.

George sat down on a chair close by, and laid her wet cheek against his, and hid his eyes amidst her curls. His emotion had spent itself in the long night, and he thought he could control it now.

“That is mamma, Meta; your mother and my dear wife. It is all that is left of her. Oh, Meta! if we had only known earlier that she was going to die!”

“It does not look like mamma.”

“The moment death comes, the change begins. It has begun in mamma. Do you understand me, Meta? In a few days I shall hear read over her by your grandpapa–” George stopped: it suddenly occurred to him that the Reverend Mr. Hastings would not officiate this time; and he amended his sentence. “I shall hear read over her the words she has I know often read to you; how the corruptible body must die, and be buried in the earth as a grain of wheat is, ere it can be changed and put on immortality.”

“Will she never come again?” sobbed Meta.

“Never here, never again. We shall go to her.”

Meta sobbed on. “I want mamma! I want mamma, who talked to me and nursed me. Mamma loved us.”

“Yes, she loved us,” he said, his heart wrung with the recollection of the past: “we shall never find any one else to love us as she loved. Meta, child, listen! Mamma lives still; she is looking down from heaven now, and sees and hears us; she loves us, and will love us for ever. And when our turn shall come to die, I hope—I hope—we shall have learnt all that she has learnt, so that God may take us to her.”

It was of no use prolonging the scene: George still questioned his judgment in allowing Meta to enter upon it. But as he rose to carry her away, the child turned her head with a sharp eager motion to take a last look. A last look at the still form, the dead face of her who yesterday only had been as they were.

Margery had that instant come in, and was standing in her bonnet in the sitting-room. To describe her face of surprised consternation when she saw Meta carried out of the chamber, would take time and trouble. “You can dress her, Margery,” George said, giving the child into her arms.

But for his subdued tones, and the evident emotion which lay upon him all too palpably in spite of his efforts to suppress it, Margery might have given her private opinion of the existing state of things. As it was, she confined her anger to dumb-show. Jerking Meta to her, with a half fond, half fierce gesture, she lifted her hand in dismay at sight of the naked feet, turned her own gown up, and flung it over them.

CHAPTER VIII.

A SAD PARTING

Again another funeral in All Souls’ Church, another opening of the vault of the Godolphins! But it was not All Souls’ Rector to officiate this time; he stood at the grave with George. Isaac Hastings had come down from London, Harry had come from his tutorship; Lord Averil was again there, and Mr. Crosse had asked to attend. Prior’s Ash looked out on the funeral with regretful eyes, saying one to another, what a sad thing it was for her, only twenty-eight, to die.

George Godolphin, contriving to maintain an outward calmness, turned away when it was over. Not yet to the mourning-coach that waited for him, but through the little gate leading to the Rectory. He was about to leave Prior’s Ash for good that night, and common courtesy demanded that he should say a word of farewell to Mrs. Hastings.

In the darkened drawing-room with Grace and Rose, in their new mourning attire, sat Mrs. Hastings: George Godolphin half started back as they rose to greet him. He did not stay to sit: he stood by the fireplace, his hat in his hand, its flowing crape almost touching the ground.

“I will say good-bye to you, now, Mrs. Hastings.”

“You really leave to-night?”

“By the seven o’clock train. Will you permit me to express my hope that a brighter time may yet dawn for you; to assure you that no effort on my part shall be spared to conduce to it?”

He spoke in a low, quiet, meaning tone, and he held her hand between his. Mrs. Hastings could not misunderstand him—that he was hinting at a hope of reimbursing somewhat of their pecuniary loss.

“Thank you for your good wishes,” she said, keeping down the tears. “You will allow me—you will speak to Lady Averil to allow me to have the child here for a day sometimes?”

“Need you ask it?” he answered, a generous warmth in his tone. “Cecil, I am quite sure, recognizes your right in the child at least in an equal degree with her own, and is glad to recognize it. Fare you well; fare you well, dear Mrs. Hastings.”

He went out, shaking hands with Grace and Rose as he passed, thinking how much he had always liked Mrs. Hastings, with her courteous manners and gentle voice, so like those of his lost wife. The Rector met him in the passage, and George held out his hand.

“I shall not see you again, sir. I leave to-night.”

The Rector took the hand. “I wish you a safe voyage!” he said. “I hope things will be more prosperous with you in India than they have been latterly here!”

“We have all need to wish that,” was George’s answer. “Mr. Hastings, promises from me might be regarded as valueless, but this much I wish to say ere we part: that I carry the weight of my debt to you about me, and I will lessen it should it be in my power. You will”—dropping his voice—“you will see that the inscription is properly placed on the tombstone?”

“I will. Have you given orders for it?”

“Oh yes. Farewell, sir. Farewell, Harry,” he added, as the two sons came in. “Isaac, I shall see you in London.”

He passed swiftly out to the mourning-coach, and was driven home. Above everything on earth, George hated this leave-taking: but there were two or three to whom it had to be spoken.

Not until dusk did he go up to Ashlydyat. He called in at Lady Godolphin’s Folly as he passed it: she was his father’s widow, and Bessy was there. My lady was very cool. My lady told him that it was his place to give the refusal of Meta to her: and she should never forgive the slight. From the very moment she heard that Maria’s life was in danger, she made up her mind to break through her rules of keeping children at a distance, and to take the child. She should have reared her in every luxury as Miss Godolphin of Ashlydyat, and have left her a handsome fortune: as it was, she washed her hands of her. George thanked her for her good intention as a matter of course; but his heart leaped within him at the thought that Meta was safe and secure with Cecil: he would have taken her and Margery out to make acquaintance with the elephants, rather than have left Meta to Lady Godolphin.

“She’ll get over the smart, George,” whispered Bessy, as she came out to bid him God-speed. “I shall be having the child here sometimes, you know. My lady’s all talk: she never cherishes resentment long.”

He entered the old home, Ashlydyat, and was left alone with Meta at his own request. She was in the deepest black: crape tucks on her short frock; not a bit of white to be seen about her, except her socks and the tips of her drawers; and Cecil had bought her a jet necklace of round beads, with a little black cross hanging from it on her neck. George sat down and took her on his knee. What with the drawn blinds and the growing twilight, the room was almost dark, and he had to look closely at the little face turned to him. She was very quiet, rather pale, as if she had grieved a good deal in the last few days.

“Meta,” he began, and then he stopped to clear his husky voice—“Meta, I am going away.”

She made no answer. She buried her face upon him and began to cry softly. It was no news to her, for Cecil had talked to her the previous night. But she clasped her arms tightly round him as if she could not let him go, and began to tremble.

“Meta!—my child!”

“I want mamma!” burst from the little full heart. “I want mamma to be with me again. Is she gone away for ever? Is she put down in the grave with Uncle Thomas? Oh, papa! I want to see her!”

A moment’s struggle with himself, and then George Godolphin gave way to the emotion which he had so successfully restrained in the churchyard. They sobbed together, the father and child: her face against his, the sobs bursting freely from his bosom. He let them come; loud, passionate, bitter sobs; unchecked, unsubdued. Do not despise him for it! they are not the worst men who can thus give way to the vehemence of our common nature.

It spent itself after a time; such emotion must spend itself; but it could not wholly pass yet. Meta was the first to speak: the same vain wish breaking from her, the sane cry.

“I want mamma! Why did she go away for ever?”

“Not for ever, Meta. Only for a time. Oh, child, we shall go to her: we shall go to her in a little while. Mamma’s gone to be an angel; to keep a place for us in heaven.”

“How long will it be?”

“Not a moment of our lives but it will draw nearer and nearer. Meta, it may be well for us that those we love should go on first, or we might never care to go thither ourselves.”

She lay more quietly. George laid his hand upon her head, unconsciously playing with her golden hair, his tears dropping on it.

“You must think of mamma always, Meta. Think that she is looking down at you, on all you do, and try and please her. She was very good: and you must be good, making ready to go to her.”

A renewed burst of sobs came from the child. George waited, and then resumed.

“When I come back—if I live to come back; or when you come to me in India; at any rate when I see you again, Meta, you will probably be grown up; no longer a child, but a young lady. If I shall only find you like mamma was in all things, I shall be happy. Do you understand, darling?”

“Yes,” she sobbed.

“Good, and gentle, and kind, and lady-like,—and remembering always that there’s another world, and that mamma has gone on to it. I should like to have kept you with me, Meta, but it cannot be: I must go out alone. You will not quite forget me, will you?”

She put up her hand and her face to his, and moaned in her pain. George laid his aching brow on hers. He knew that it might be the last time they should meet on earth.

“I shall write to you by every mail, Meta, and you must write to me. You can put great capital letters together now, and that will do to begin with. And,” his voice faltered, “when you walk by mamma’s grave on Sundays—and see her name there—you will remember her—and me. You will think how we are separated: mamma in heaven; I, in a far-off land; you here: but you know the separation will not be for ever, and each week will bring us nearer to its close—its close in some way. If—if we never meet again on earth, Meta–”

“Oh don’t, papa! I want you to come back to me.”

He choked down his emotion. He took the little face in his hands and kissed it fervently: in that moment, in his wrung feelings, he almost wished he had no beloved child to abandon.

“You must be called by your own name now. I should wish it. Meta was all very well,” he continued, half to himself, “when she was here; that the names should not interfere with each other. Be a good child, my darling. Be very obedient to Aunt Cecil, as you used to be to mamma.”

“Aunt Cecil is not mamma,” said Meta, her little heart swelling.

“No, my darling, but she will be to you as mamma, and she and Lord Averil will love you very much. I wish—I wish I could have kept you with me, Meta!”

She wished it also. If ever a child knew what an aching heart was, she knew it then.

“And now I must go,” he added—for indeed he did not care to prolong the pain. “I shall write to you from London, Meta, and I shall write you quite a packet when I am on board ship. You must get on well with your writing, so as to be able soon to read my letters yourself. Farewell, farewell, my darling child!”

How long she clung to him; how long he kept her clinging, he gave no heed. When the emotion on both sides was spent, he took her by the right hand and led her to the next room. Lady Averil came forward.

“Cecil,” he said, his voice quiet and subdued, “she must be called Maria now—in remembrance of her mother.”

“Yes,” said Cecil eagerly. “We should all like it. Sit down, George. Lord Averil has stepped out somewhere, but he will not be long.”

“I cannot stay. I shall see him outside, I dare say. If not, he will come to the station. Will you say to him–”

A low burst of tears from the child interrupted the sentence. George, in speaking to Cecil, had loosed her hand, and she laid her head down on a sofa to cry. He took her up in his arms, and she clung to him tightly: it was only the old scene over again, and George felt that they were not alone now. He imprinted a last kiss upon her face, and gave her to his sister.

“She had better be taken away, Cecil.”

Lady Averil, with many loving words, carried her outside the door, sobbing as she was, and called to her maid. “Be very kind to her,” she whispered. “It is a sad parting. And—Harriet—henceforth she is to be called by her proper name—Maria.”

“She will get over it in a day or two, George,” said Lady Averil, returning.

“Yes, I know that,” he answered, his face turned from Cecil. “Cherish the remembrance of her mother within her as much as you possibly can, Cecil: I should wish her to grow up like Maria.”

“If you would only stay a last hour with us!”

“I can’t; I can’t: it is best that I should go. I do not know what the future may bring forth,” he lingered to say, “Whether I shall come home—or live to come home, or she, when she is older, come out to me: it is all uncertain.”

“Were I you, George, I would not indulge the thought of the latter. She will be better here—as it seems to me.”

“Yes—there’s no doubt of it. But the separation is a cruel one. However—the future must be left. God bless you, Cecil! and thank you ever for your kindness.”

The tears rolled down her cheeks as he bent to kiss her. “George,” she whispered timidly—“if I might only ask you one question.”

“Ask me anything.”

“Is—have you any intention—shall you be likely to think of—of replacing Maria by Charlotte Pain—of making her your wife?”

“Replacing Maria by her!” he echoed, his face flushing. “Heaven forgive you for thinking it!”

The question cured George’s present emotion more effectually than anything else could have done. But his haughty anger against Cecil was unreasonable, and he felt that it was so.

“Forgive me, my dear: but it sounded so like an insult to my dear wife. Be easy: she will never replace Maria.”

In the porch, as George went out, he met Lord Averil hastening in. Lord Averil would have put his arm within George’s to walk with him through the grounds, but George drew back.