The Shadow of Ashlydyat Part 134

Margery was standing at the door when they reached the gate, possibly looking out for her master, for she knew the hours of the arrival of the trains. The windows of the sitting-room faced that way, and George's eyes naturally turned to them. But there was no sign of busy life, of every-day occupation: the curtains hung in their undisturbed folds, the blinds were partially down.

"I will just ask how your wife is now, and whether Cecil is here," said Lord Averil, following George up the path.

No, Lady Averil and Miss Bessy G.o.dolphin had left about ten minutes before, Margery said. My Lady G.o.dolphin, who had driven up in her carriage and come in for a quarter of an hour, had left; and Miss Rose Hastings, who had been there the best part of the morning, had also left. Mrs. George G.o.dolphin seemed a trifle better; inclined to sleep, tired out, as it were; and she, Margery, didn't wonder at it with such a heap of visitors: she had given them a broad hint herself that her mistress might be all the better for an hour's quiet.

Lord Averil departed. George flung his railway wrapper on to a chair and hung his hat up in the little hall: he turned his face, one of severity then, on Margery.

"Is your mistress so very ill? Why was I not sent for earlier? Is she so very ill?" he continued in an impa.s.sioned tone.

"Well, sir, I don't know," answered Margery, willing perhaps to soften the truth to him. "She is certainly better than she was in the morning.

She is sitting up."

George G.o.dolphin was of a hopeful nature. Even those few words seemed to speak to his heart with a certainty. "Not there, sir," interposed Margery, as he opened the door of the sitting-room. "But it don't matter," she added: "you can go in that way."

He walked through the room and opened the door of the bedchamber. Would the scene ever leave his memory? The room was lighted more by the blaze of the fire than by the daylight, for curtains partly covered the windows and the winter's dreary afternoon was already merging into twilight. The bed was at the far end of the room, the dressing-table near it. The fire was on his right as he entered, and on a white-covered sofa, drawn before it, sat Maria. She was partly dressed and wrapped in a light cashmere shawl; her cap was untied, and her face, shaded though it was by its smooth brown hair, was all too visible in the reflection cast by the firelight.

Which was the more colourless--that face, or the white cover of the sofa? George G.o.dolphin's heart stood still as he looked upon it and then bounded on with a rush. Every shadow of hope had gone from him.

Maria had not heard him, did not see him; he went in gently. By her side on the sofa lay Miss Meta, curled up into a ball and fast asleep, her hands and her golden curls on her mamma's knee. With George's first step forward, Maria turned her sad sweet eyes towards him, and a faint cry of emotion escaped her lips.

Before she could stir or speak, George was with her, his protecting arms thrown round her, her face gathered to his breast. What a contrast it was! she so wan and fragile, so near the grave, he in all his manly strength, his fresh beauty. Miss Meta woke up, recognized her papa with a cry and much commotion, but Margery came in and carried her off, shutting the door behind her.

Her fair young face--too fair and young to die--was laid against her husband's; her feeble hand lay carelessly in his. The shock to George was very great; it almost seemed that he had already lost her; and the scalding tears, so rarely wrung from man, coursed down his cheeks, and fell on her face.

"Don't grieve," she whispered, the tears raining from her own eyes.

"Oh, George, my husband, it is a bitter thing to part, but we shall meet again in heaven, and be together for ever. It has been so weary here; the troubles have been so great!"

He steadied his voice to speak. "The troubles have not killed you, have they, Maria?"

"Yes, I suppose it has been so. I did try and struggle against them, but--I don't know---- Oh, George!" she broke out in a wailing tone of pain, "if I could have but got over them and lived!--if I could only have gone with you to your new home!"

George sat down on the sofa where Meta had been, and held her to him in silence. She could hear his heart beating; could feel it bounding against her side.

"It will be a better home in heaven," she resumed, laying her poor pale face upon his shoulder. "You will come to me there, George; I shall only go on first a little while; all the pains and the cares, the heart-burnings of earth will be forgotten, and we shall be together in happiness for ever and ever."

He dropped his face upon her neck, he sobbed aloud in his anguish.

Whatever may have been his gracelessness and his faults, he had loved his wife; and now that he was losing her, that love was greater than it had ever been: some p.r.i.c.ks of conscience may have been mingled with it, too! Who knows?

"Don't forget me quite when I am gone, George. Think of me sometimes as your poor wife who loved you to the last; who would have stayed with you if G.o.d had let her. When first I began to see that it must be, that I should leave you and Meta, my heart nearly broke; but the pain has grown less, and I think G.o.d has been reconciling me to it."

"What shall I do?--what will the child do without you?" broke from his quivering lips.

Perhaps the thought crossed Maria that he had done very well without her in the last few months, for his sojourn with her might be counted by hours instead of by days: but she was too generous to allude to it; and the heart-aching had pa.s.sed. "Cecil and Lord Averil will take Meta," she said. "Let her stay with them, George! It would not be well for her to go to India alone with you."

The words surprised him. He did not speak.

"Cecil proposed it yesterday. They will be _glad_ to have her. I dare say Lord Averil will speak to you about it later. It was the one great weight left upon my mind, George--our poor child, and what could be done with her: Cecil's generous proposal removed it."

"Yes," said George hesitatingly. "For a little while; perhaps it will be the best thing. Until I shall get settled in India. But she must come to me then; I cannot part with her for good."

"For good? No. But, George, you may--it is possible--" she seemed to stammer and hesitate--"you may be forming new ties. In that case you would care less for the loss of Meta----"

"Don't talk so!" he pa.s.sionately interrupted. "How can you glance at such things, Maria, in these our last moments?"

She was silent for a few minutes, weeping softly. "Had this parting come upon me as suddenly as it has upon you, I might have started from the very thought with horror; but, George, I have had nothing else in my own mind for weeks but the parting, and it has made me look at the future as I could not else have looked at it. Do not blame me for saying this. I must allude to it, if I am to speak of Meta. I can understand how full of aversion the thought is to you now: but, George, it _may_ come to pa.s.s."

"I think not," he said, and his voice and manner had changed to grave deliberation. "If I know anything of myself, Maria, I shall never marry again."

"It is not impossible."

"No," he a.s.sented; "it is not impossible."

Her heart beat a shade quicker, and she hid her face upon him so that he could not see it. When she spoke again, it was with difficulty he could catch the whispered words.

"I know how foolish and wrong it is for a dying wife to extract any promise of this nature from her husband: were I to say to you, Do not marry again, it would be little else than a wicked request; and it would prove how my thoughts and pa.s.sions must still cling to earth. Bear with me while I speak of this, George, _I_ am not going to be so wicked; but--but----"

Agitation stopped her voice. Her bosom heaved, her breath almost left her. He saw that this was mental emotion, not bodily weakness; and he waited until it should pa.s.s, stroking the hair from her brow with his gentle hand.

"My darling, what is it?"

"But there is one promise that I do wish to beg of you," she resumed, mastering her emotion sufficiently to speak. "If--if you should marry, and your choice falls upon _one_--upon _her_--then, in that case, do not seek to have Meta home; let her remain always with Cecil."

A pause, broken by George. "Of whom do you speak, Maria?"

The same laboured breathing; the same cruel agitation; and they had to be fought with before she could bring out the words.

"Of Charlotte Pain."

"Charlotte Pain!" echoed George, shouting out the name in surprise.

"I could not bear it," she s.h.i.+vered. "George, George! do not make her the second mother of my child! I could not bear it; it seems to me that I could not even in my grave bear it! Should you marry her, promise me that Meta shall not be removed from Ashlydyat."

"Maria," he quietly said, "I shall never marry Charlotte Pain."

"You don't know. You may think now you will not, but you cannot answer for yourself. George! she has helped to kill me. She must not be Meta's second mother."

He raised her face so that he could see it, his dark blue eyes met hers searchingly, and he took her hand in his as he gravely spoke.

"She will never be Meta's second mother: nay, if it will be more satisfactory, I will say she never shall be. By the heaven that perhaps even I may some day attain to, I say it! Charlotte Pain will never be Meta's second mother, or my wife."

She did not answer in words. She only nestled a little nearer to him in grat.i.tude; half in repentance perhaps for having doubted him. George resumed, in the same grave tone:

"And now, Maria, tell me what you mean by saying that Charlotte Pain has helped to kill you."

A vivid flush came over her wan face, and she contrived to turn it from him again, so that her eyes were hidden. But she did not speak quite at first.

"It all came upon me together, George," she murmured at length, her tone one of loving-tenderness, in token that she was not angry now; that the past, whatever may have been its sins against her, any or none, was forgiven. "At that cruel time when the blow fell, when I had nowhere to turn to for comfort, then I also learnt what Prior's Ash had been saying, about--about Charlotte Pain. George, it seemed to wither my very heart; to take the life out of it. I had so loved you; I had so trusted you: and to find--to find--that you loved her, not me----"