The Shadow of Ashlydyat Part 125

Was there any prevision of what the night would bring forth in the mind of Thomas G.o.dolphin? It might be. He entwined in his the hands held out to him.

"G.o.d bless you, George! G.o.d bless you, and keep you always!" And a lump, not at all familiar to George G.o.dolphin's throat, rose in it as he went out from the presence of his brother.

It was one of those charmingly clear evenings that bring a sensation of tranquillity to the senses. Daylight could not be said to have quite faded, but the moon was up, its rays s.h.i.+ning brighter and brighter with every departing moment of day. As George pa.s.sed Lady G.o.dolphin's Folly, Janet was coming from it.

He could not avoid her. I do not say that he wished to do so, but he could not if he had wished it. They stood talking together for some time; of Thomas's state; of this Calcutta prospect of George's, for Janet had heard something of it from Lord Averil; and she questioned him closely on other subjects. It was growing quite night when Janet made a movement homewards, and George could do no less than attend her.

"I thought Bessy was with you," he remarked, as they walked along.

"She is remaining an hour or two longer with Lady G.o.dolphin; but it was time I came home to Thomas. When do you say you must sail, George?"

"The beginning of the year. My salary will commence with the first of January, and I ought to be off that day. I don't know whether that will give Maria sufficient time for preparation."

"Sufficient time!" repeated Miss G.o.dolphin. "Will she want to take out a s.h.i.+p's cargo? I should think she might be ready in a t.i.the of it. Shall you take the child?"

"Oh yes," he hastily answered; "I could not go without Meta. And I am sure Maria would not consent to be separated from her. I hope Maria will not object to going on her own score."

"Nonsense!" returned Janet. "She will have the sense to see that it is a remarkable piece of good fortune, far better than you had any right to expect. Let me recommend you to put by half your salary, George. It is a very handsome one, and you may do it if you will. Take a lesson from the past."

"Yes," replied George, with a twitch of conscience. "I wonder if the climate will try Maria?"

"I trust that the change will be good for her in all ways," said Janet emphatically. "Depend upon it she will be only too thankful to turn her back on Prior's Ash. She will not get strong as long as she stops in it, or so long as your prospects are uncertain, doing nothing, as you are now. _I_ can't make out, for my part, how you live."

"You might easily guess that I have been helped a little, Janet."

"By one that _I_ would not be helped by if I were starving," severely rejoined Janet. "You allude, I presume, to Mr. Verrall?"

George did allude to Mr. Verrall; but he avoided a direct answer. "All that I borrow I shall return," he said, "as soon as it is in my power to do so. It is not much: and it is given and received as a loan only. What do you think of Thomas?" he asked, willing to change the subject.

"I think----" Janet stopped. Her voice died away to a whisper, and finally ceased. They had taken the path home round by the ash-trees. The Dark Plain lay stretched before them in the moonlight. In the brightest night the gorse-bushes gave the place a shadowy, weird-like appearance, but never had the moonlight on the plain been clearer, whiter, brighter than it was now. And the Shadow?

The ominous Shadow of Ashlydyat lay there: the Shadow which had clung to the fortunes of the G.o.dolphins, as tradition said, in past ages; which had certainly followed the present race. But the blackness that had characterized it was absent from it now: the Shadow was undoubtedly there, but had eyes been looking on it less accustomed to its form than were Miss G.o.dolphin's, they might have failed to make out distinctly its outlines. It was of a light, faint hue; more as the reflection of the Shadow, if it may be so expressed.

"George! do you notice?" she breathed.

"I see it," he answered.

"But do you notice its peculiarity--its faint appearance? I should say--I should say that it is indeed going from us; that it must be about the last time it will follow the G.o.dolphins. With the wresting from them of Ashlydyat the curse was to die out."

She sat down on the bench under the ash-trees, and was speaking in low, dreamy tones: but George heard every word, and the topic was not particularly palatable to him. He could only remember that it was he and no other who had caused them to lose Ashlydyat.

"Your brother will not be here long," murmured Janet. "That warning is for the last chief of the G.o.dolphins."

"Oh, Janet! I wish you were not so superst.i.tious! Of course we know--it is patent to us all--that Thomas cannot last long: a few days, a few hours even, may close his life. Why should you connect with him that wretched Shadow?"

"I know what I know, and I have seen what I have seen," was the reply of Janet, spoken slowly; nay, solemnly. "It is no wonder that _you_ wish to ignore it, to affect to disbelieve in it; but you can do neither the one nor the other, George G.o.dolphin."

George gave no answering argument. It may be that he had felt he had forfeited the right to argue with Janet. She again broke the silence.

"I have watched and watched; but never once, since the day that those horrible misfortunes fell, has that Shadow appeared. I thought it had gone for good; I thought that our ruin, the pa.s.sing of Ashlydyat into the possession of strangers, was the working out of the curse. But it seems it has come again; for the last time, as I believe. And it is only in accordance with the past, that the type of the curse should come to shadow forth the death of the last G.o.dolphin."

"You are complimentary to me, Janet," cried George good-humouredly.

"When poor Thomas shall have gone, I shall be here still, the last of the G.o.dolphins."

"_You!_" returned Janet, and her tone of scornful contempt, unconscious as she might herself be of it, brought a sting to George's mind, a flush to his brow. "You might be worthy of the name of G.o.dolphin once, laddie, but that's over. The last true G.o.dolphin dies out with Thomas."

"How long are you going to sit here?" asked George, after a time, as she gave no signs of moving.

"You need not wait," returned Janet. "I am at home now, as may be said.

Don't stay, George: I would rather you did not: your wife must be expecting you."

Glad enough to be released, George went his way, and Janet sat on, alone. With that Shadow before her--though no longer a dark one--it was impossible but that her reflections should turn to the unhappy past: and she lost herself in perplexity.

A great deal of this story, The Shadow of Ashlydyat, is a perfectly true one; it is but the recital of a drama in real life. And the superst.i.tion that encompa.s.ses it? ten thousand inquisitive tongues will ask. Yes, and the superst.i.tion. There are things, as I have just said, which can neither be explained nor accounted for: they are marvels, mysteries, and so they must remain. Many a family has its supernatural skeleton, religiously believed in; many a house has its one dread corner which has never been fully unclosed to the light of day. Say what men will to the contrary, there is a tendency in the human mind to tread upon the confines of superst.i.tion. We cannot shut our eyes to things that occur within our view, although we may be, and always shall be, utterly unable to explain them; what they are, what they spring from, why they come. If I were to tell you that I believed there are such things as omens, warnings, which come to us--though seldom are they sufficiently marked at the time to be attended to--I should be called a visionary day-dreamer. I am nothing of the sort. I have my share of plain common sense. I pa.s.s my time in working, not in dreaming. I never had the gratification of seeing a ghost yet, and I wish I was as sure of the fruition of my dearest hopes, as I am that I never shall see one. I have not been taken into favour by the spirits, have never been promoted to so much as half a message from them--and never expect to be. But some curious incidents have forced themselves on my life's experience, causing me to echo as a question the a.s.sertion of the Prince of Denmark--Are there not more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy?

Janet G.o.dolphin rose with a deep sigh and her weight of care. She kept her head turned to the Shadow until she had pa.s.sed from its view, and then continued her way to the house, murmuring: "It's but a small misfortune; the Shadow is scarcely darker than the moonlight itself."

Thomas was in his arm-chair, bending forward towards the fire, as she entered. His face would have been utterly colourless, save for the bluish tinge which had settled there, a tinge distinguishable even in the red blaze. Janet, keen-sighted as Margery, thought the hue had grown more ominous since she quitted him in the afternoon.

"Have you come back alone?" asked Thomas, turning towards her.

"George accompanied me as far as the ash-trees: I met him. Bessy is staying on for an hour with Lady G.o.dolphin."

"It's a fine night," he observed.

"It is," replied Janet. "Thomas," dropping her voice, "the Shadow is abroad."

"Ah!"

The response was spoken in no tone of dread, or dismay; but calmly, pleasantly, with a smile upon his lips.

"It has changed its tone," continued Janet, "and may be called grey now instead of black. I thought it had left us for good, Thomas. I suppose it had to come once more."

"If it cared to keep up its character for consistency," he said, his voice jesting. "If it has been the advance herald of the death of other G.o.dolphins, why should it not herald in mine?"

"I did not expect to hear you joke about the Shadow," observed Janet, after a pause of vexation.

"Nay, there's no harm in it. I have never understood it, you know, Janet; none of us have; so little have we understood, that we have not known whether to believe or disbelieve. A short while, Janet, and things may be made plainer to me."

"How are you feeling to-night?" somewhat abruptly asked Janet, looking askance at his face.

"Never better of late days. It seems as if ease both of mind and body had come to me. I think," he added, after a few moments' reflection, "that what George tells me of a prospect opening for him, has imparted this sense of ease. I have thought of him a great deal, Janet; of his wife and child; of what would become of him and of them. He may live yet to be a comfort to his family; to repair to others some of the injury he has caused. Oh, Janet! I am ready to go."

Janet turned her eyes from the fire, that the rising tears might not be seen. "The Shadow was very light, Thomas," she repeated. "Whatever it may herald forth, will not be much of a misfortune."

"A misfortune!--to be taken to my rest!--to the good G.o.d who has so loved and kept me here! No, Janet. A few minutes before you came in, I fell into a doze, and I dreamt that I saw Jesus Christ standing there by the window, waiting for me. He had His hand stretched out to me with a smile. So vivid had been the impression, that when I awoke I thought it was reality, and was hastening towards the window before I recollected myself."

Janet rang the bell for lights to be brought in. Thomas, his elbow resting on the arm of his chair, bent his head upon his hand, and became lost in imagination in the glories that might so soon open to him.

Bright forms were flitting around a wondrous throne, golden harps in their hands; and in one of them, her harp idle, her radiant face turned as if watching for one who might be coming, he seemed to recognize Ethel.