The Shadow of Ashlydyat Part 51

PART THE SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

SIXTY POUNDS TO OLD JEKYL.

Standing on the covered terrace outside the dining-room at the Bank, in all the warm beauty of the late and lovely spring morning, surrounded by the perfume of flowers, the green lawn stretching out before her, the pleasant sitting-room behind her, its large window open and its paintings on the walls conspicuous, was Maria G.o.dolphin. She wore a morning dress, simple and pretty as of yore, and her fair face had lost none of its beauty, scarcely any of its youth. Looking at her you would not think that a month had elapsed since she came there, to her home, after her marriage; and yet the time, since then, would not be counted by months, but by years. Six years and a half, it is, since her marriage took place, and the little girl, whom Maria is holding by the hand, is five years old. Just now Maria's face is all animation. She is talking to the child, and talking also to Jonathan and David Jekyl: but if you saw her at an unoccupied moment, her face in repose, you might detect an expression of settled sadness in it. It arose from the loss of her children. Three had died in succession, one after another; and this one, the eldest, was the only child remaining to her. A wondrously pretty little girl, her bare legs peeping between her frilled drawers and her white socks; with the soft brown eyes of her mother, and the golden Saxon curls of her father. With her mother's eyes the child had inherited her mother's gentle temperament: and Margery--who had found in her heart to leave Ashlydyat and become nurse to George's children--was wont to say that she never had to do with so sweet-tempered a child. She had been named Maria; but the name, for home use, had been corrupted into Meta: not to interfere with Maria's. She held her mother's hand, and, by dint of stretching up on her toes, could just bring her eyes above the marble top of the terrace bal.u.s.trade.

"Donatan, why don't you get that big ting, to-day?"

Jonathan looked up, a broad smile on his face. He delighted in little children. He liked to hear them call him "Donatan:" and the little lady before him was as backward in the sound of the "th," as if she had been French. "She means the scythe, ma'am," said Jonathan.

"I know she does," said Maria. "The gra.s.s does not want mowing to-day, Meta. David, do you not think those rose-trees are very backward?"

David gave his usual grunt. "I should wonder if they were for'ard. There ain't no rose-trees for miles round but what is back'ard, except them as have been nursed. With the cutting spring we've had, how are the rose-trees to get on, I'd like to know?"

Jonathan looked round, his face quite suns.h.i.+ne compared with David's: his words also. "They'll come on famous now, ma'am, with this lovely weather. Ten days of it, and we shall have them all out in bloom. Little miss shall have a rare posy then, and I'll cut off the thorns first."

"A big one, mind, Donatan," responded the young lady, beginning to dance about in antic.i.p.ation. The child had an especial liking for roses, which Jonathan remembered. She inherited her mother's great love for flowers.

"David, how is your wife?" asked Maria.

"I've not heard that there's anything the matter with her," was David's phlegmatic answer, without lifting his face from the bed. He and Jonathan were both engaged almost at the same spot: David, it must be confessed, getting through more work than Jonathan.

They had kept that garden in order for Mr. Crosse, when the Bank was his residence. Also for Thomas G.o.dolphin and his sisters, the little time they had lived there: and afterwards for George. George had now a full complement of servants--rather more than a complement, indeed--and one of them might well have attended to that small garden. Janet had suggested as much: but easy George continued to employ the Jekyls. It was not often that the two attended together; as they were doing to-day.

"David," returned Maria, in answer to his remark, "I am sure you must know that your wife is often ailing. She is anything but strong. Only she is always merry and in good spirits, and so people think her better than she is. She is quite a contrast to you, David," Maria added, with a smile. "You don't talk and laugh much."

"Talking and laughing don't get on with a man's work, as ever I heerd on," returned David.

"Is it true that your father slipped yesterday, and sprained his ankle?"

continued Maria. "I heard that he did."

"True enough," growled David.

"'Twas all along of his good fortune, ma'am," said sunny Jonathan. "He was so elated with it that he slipped down Gaffer Thorpe's steps, where he was going to tell the news, and fell upon his ankle. The damage ain't of much account. But that's old father all over! Prime him up with a piece of good fortune, and he is all c.o.c.k-a-hoop about it."

"What is the good fortune?" asked Maria.

"It's that money come to him at last, ma'am, what he had waited for so long. I'm sure we had all given it up for lost; and father stewed and fretted over it, wondering always what was going to become of him in his old age. 'Tain't so very much, neither."

"Sixty pound is sixty pound," grunted David.

"Well, so it is," acquiesced Jonathan. "And father looks to it to make him more comfortable than he could be from his profits; his honey, and his garden, and that. He was like a child last night, ma'am, planning what he'd do with it. I told him he had better take care not to lose it."

"Let him bring it to the Bank," said Maria. "Tell him I say so, Jonathan. It will be safe here. He might be paid interest for it."

"I will, ma'am."

Maria spoke the words in good faith. Her mind had conjured up a vision of old Jekyl keeping his sixty pounds in his house, at the foot of some old stocking: and she thought how easily he might be robbed of it. "Yes, Jonathan, tell him to bring it here: don't let him keep it at home, to lose it."

Maria had another auditor, of whose presence she was unconscious. It was her mother. Mrs. Hastings had been admitted by a servant, and came through the room to the terrace unheard by Maria. The little girl's ears--like all children's--were quick, and she turned, and broke into a joyous cry of "Grandma!" Maria looked round.

"On, mamma! I did not know you were here. Are you quite well?" hastily added Maria, fancying that her mother looked dispirited.

"We have had news from Reginald this morning, and the news is not good,"

was the reply. "He has been getting into some disagreeable sc.r.a.pe over there, and it has taken a hundred pounds or two to clear him. Of course they came upon us for it."

Maria's countenance fell. "Reginald is very unlucky. He seems always to be getting into sc.r.a.pes."

"He always is," said Mrs. Hastings. "We thought he could not get into mischief at sea: but it appears that he does. The s.h.i.+p was at Calcutta still, but they were expecting daily to sail for home."

"What is it that he has been doing?" asked Maria.

"I do not quite understand," replied Mrs. Hastings. "I saw his letter, but that was not very explanatory. What it chiefly contained were expressions of contrition, and promises of amendment. The captain wrote to your papa: and that letter he would not give me to read. Your papa's motive was a good one, no doubt,--to save me vexation. But, my dear, he forgets that uncertainty causes the imagination to conjure up fears, worse, probably, than the reality."

"As Reginald grows older, he will grow steadier," remarked Maria. "And, mamma, whatever it may be, your grieving over it will not mend it."

"True," replied Mrs. Hastings. "But," she added, with a sad smile, "when your children shall be as old as mine, Maria, you will have learnt how impossible it is to a mother not to grieve. Have you forgotten the old saying? 'When our children are young they tread upon our toes; but when they are older they tread upon our hearts.'"

Little Miss Meta was treading upon her toes, just then. The child's tiny shoes were dancing upon grandmamma's in her eagerness to get close to her; to tell her that Donatan was going to give her a great big handful of roses, as soon as they were out, with the thorns cut off.

"Come to me, Meta," said Maria. She saw that her mamma was not in a mood to be troubled with children, and she drew the child on to her own knee.

"Mamma, I am going for a drive presently," she continued. "Would it not do you good to accompany me?"

"I don't know that I could spare the time this morning," said Mrs.

Hastings. "Are you going far?"

"I can go far or not, as you please," replied Maria. "We have a new carriage, and George told me at breakfast that I had better try it, and see how I liked it."

"A new carriage!" replied Mrs. Hastings, her accent betraying surprise.

"Had you not enough carriages already, Maria?"

"In truth, I think we had, mamma. This new one is one that George took a fancy to when he was in London last week; and he bought it."

"Child--though of course it is no business of mine--you surely did not want it. What sort of carriage is it?"

"It is a large one: a sort of barouche. It will do you good to go out with me. I will order it at once, if you will do so, mamma."