Ashlydyat

“ That he had been to Ashlydyat was certain, for the road led nowhere else. Thomas did not know that illness was in the house.
“Neither did I,” said Mr. Snow in answer to the remark, “until an hour ago, when I was sent for in haste.”
A thought crossed Thomas Godolphin. “Not a case of fever, I hope!”
“No. I think that’s leaving us. There has been an accident at Ashlydyat to Mrs. Verrall. At least, what might have been an accident, I should rather say,” added the surgeon, correcting himself. “The injury is so slight as not to be worth the name of one.” ”

“ It is said to come as a reminder to the Godolphins of a worse sound that will sometime be heard, when Ashlydyat shall be passing away from them.”
“But you don’t believe that?” uttered Maria.
“Child, I can scarcely tell you what I believe,” was Janet’s answer. “I can only pray that the one-half of what my heart prompts me to fear, may never take place in reality. That the noise does come, and without any apparent cause, is not a matter of belief, or disbelief: it is a fact, patent to all who have inhabited Ashlydyat. The Verralls can tell you so: they have had their rest broken by it.” ”

“ Every hour seemed to bring forth worse and worse. Thomas gazed with compassion on the haggardness that was seating itself on her sweet face. She was less able to cope with this misery than he. He laid his hand upon her shoulder, speaking in low tones.
“It is a fiery trial for both of us, Maria: one hard to encounter. God alone can help us to bear it. Be very sure that He will help!”
He went out, taking his way on foot to Ashlydyat. There was greater grief there, if possible, than at the Bank. The news touching the bonds, unhappily afloat in Prior’s Ash, had penetrated an hour ago to Ashlydyat. ”

“ The morning sun shone on the green lawn, on the clustering flowers, rich in many colours, sweet in their perfume, before the breakfast-room at Ashlydyat. The room itself was in shadow: as it is pleasant in summer for a room to be: but the windows stood open to the delights of outdoor life.
Janet presided at the breakfast-table. She always did preside there. Thomas, Bessy, and Cecil were disposed around her ”

“ He caught her to him with a fond gesture, and they hastened on, down from the eminence where rose the Folly, to the lower ground nearer Ashlydyat. The Dark Plain lay to the right, and as they struck into a narrow, overhung walk, its gloom contrasted unpleasantly with the late brightness. Maria Hastings drew nearer to her companion with an involuntary shiver.
“Why did you come this dark way, George?”
“It is the most direct way. In the dark or in the light you are safe with me. Did you notice Sir George’s joke about Charlotte Pain?” ”

“ But, on the spot of bare land, before the archway, would rise the Shadow; not looking as if it were a shadow cast on the ground, but a palpable fact: as if a bier, with its two bending mourners, actually stood there in the substance. I say that I cannot explain it, or attempt to explain it; but I do say that there it was to be seen. Not often: sometimes not for years together. It was called the Shadow of Ashlydyat: and superstition told that its appearance foreshadowed the approach of calamity, whether of death or other evil, to the Godolphins. ”

“ Not a woman-servant of Ashlydyat, perhaps not one of its men, would have gone down that path at night: for at the other end it brought them out to the archway, before which the Shadow was wont to show itself.
Why did George take it? He could not have told. Had he been asked why, he might have said that one way, to a man bowed under a sharp weight of trouble, is the same as another. True. But the path led him to no part where he could wish to go; and he would have to make his way to Lady Godolphin’s Folly through the gorse bushes of the Dark Plain, over the very Shadow itself. ”

“ The lovely flowers of Ashlydyat’s garden, its velvet lawns, were stretched out before her: the white walls of Lady Godolphin’s Folly [264] rose in the distance; and Maria sat in an easy-chair in luxurious idleness, her fair white hands lying in her lap. Meta was away somewhere, fascinating the household, and all was rest. Rest from exertion, rest from care. The time came when Maria looked back on that day and believed it must have been paradise.
Janet sent a note to the Bank, to desire George to come up to dinner with Thomas. When Thomas arrived, however, he was alone. ”

“ Maria felt somewhat alarmed. It appeared a formidable preamble.
“I and your papa sometimes talk it over, one with another. And we say”—Mrs. Hastings smiled, as if to disarm her words of their serious import—“that we wish we could put old heads upon young shoulders. Upon yours and your husband’s.”
“But why?—in what way?” cried Maria.
“My dear, if you and he had old heads, you would, I think, see how very wrong it is—I speak the word only in your interests, Maria—to maintain so great and expensive an establishment. It must cost you and George, here, far more than it costs them at Ashlydyat.” ”

“ The disappointment arose from the fact that she could not make the Folly her home. After spending a morning in it, or an evening, she must leave it to return to that grey Ashlydyat—the only eyesore to be seen, when gazing from the Folly’s windows. If a day turned out wet, she could not walk to the Folly; if she was expecting visitors she must stay at home to receive them; if Sir George felt ill—and his health was then beginning to suffer—she could not leave him for her darling Folly. It was darling because it was new: in six months’ time, Lady Godolphin would have grown tired of it ”

“ Thomas shook his head. “We may suspect a great deal—in fact, it is more than suspicion—but we can prove nothing. The man will rise triumphantly from it all, and carry his head higher than ever. I hope, I say, that he will not think of Ashlydyat. They were in it once, you know.”
“Why could not Ashlydyat be disposed of privately?—by valuation? It might be, if the assignees approved.”
“Yes, I suppose it might be.”
“I wish you would sell it to me,” breathed Lord Averil.
“To you!” repeated Thomas Godolphin. “Ay, indeed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Any [374] stranger who bids most will get Ashlydyat. I hope,” he added, with a half start, as if the possibility occurred to him then for the first time, “that the man Verrall will not become a bidder for it—and get it! Lady Godolphin turns him out of the Folly.”
“Never fear,” said Lord Averil. “He will only be too glad to relieve Prior’s Ash of his presence. Thomas, can nothing be done to the man? Your brother may have been a willing tool in his hands, but broad whispers are going about that it is Verrall who has reaped the harvest. Can no legal cognizance be taken of it?” ”

“ Breaking fast. Thomas, all his talk is, that he must come home to die.”
“To Ashlydyat. I know. How is he to come to it? The Folly is not Ashlydyat. He has desired me to see that he is at Prior’s Ash before Christmas, and I shall do so.”
George looked surprised. “Desired you to see that he is?”
“If he is not back speedily, I am to go to Broomhead.”
“Oh, I see. That your authority, upholding his, may be pitted against my lady’s. Take care, Thomas: she may prove stronger than both of you put together.” ”

“ He had brought the evil of poverty upon himself, the taint of disgrace upon his name; he had driven his sisters from their home; had sent that fair and proud inheritance of the Godolphins, Ashlydyat, into the market; and had hastened the passage of his brother to the grave. Ay! dash your bright hair from your brow as you will, George Godolphin!—pass your cambric handkerchief over your heated face!—you cannot dash away remembrance. You have done all this, and the consciousness is very present with you. ”

“ I am very ill, Cecil.”
“You do not look fit to embark on this voyage.”
Maria simply shook her head. She was sitting now in an old-fashioned arm-chair, one white hand lying on her black dress, the other supporting her chin, while the firelight played on her wasted features.
“Would the little change to Ashlydyat benefit you, Maria? If so, if it would help to give you strength for your voyage, come to us at once. Now don’t refuse! It will give us so much pleasure. You do not know how Lord Averil loves and respects you. I think there is no one he respects as he respects you. ”

“ The Shadow of Ashlydyat is ridiculed from one end of the county to the other: spoken of—when spoken of at all—as an absurd superstition of the Godolphins. But there the Shadow is: and not all the ridicule extant can do away with the plain fact. I see it: but I cannot explain it.”
“What do you do about it?”
Lord Averil asked the question in his bewilderment. A smile crossed Thomas Godolphin’s lips as he answered.
“We do nothing. We can do nothing. We cannot prevent its coming; we cannot send it away when it comes; we cannot bring it if it does not come of its own accord. ”

“ Maria’s lips slightly parted as she listened. “But the Verralls have left Ashlydyat a long while?” she presently said.
“I know they have. But they were usurpers here for the time. Better—as I believe—that my father had shut it up: better, far better, that he had never left it! He knew it also: and it preyed upon him on his death-bed.”
“Oh, Janet! the ill may not come in our time!”
“It may not. I am anxious to believe it may not, in defiance of the unalterable conviction that has seated itself within me. Let it pass, Maria ”

“ 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.” ”

“ It was done in carelessness, perhaps, but not wilfulness. Why do you not come to Ashlydyat sometimes? You know we should be glad to see you.”
She shook her head. “I cannot go out, Thomas. Indeed, I am not strong enough for it now.”
“But Maria, you should not give way to this grief; this weakness. You are young; you have no incurable complaint, as I have.”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “At times I feel as though I should never be well again. I—I—have been so reproached, Thomas; so much blame has been cast on me by all people ”

“ She threw back her crape veil to kiss Maria. She had come down from Ashlydyat on purpose to tell her the news of the bones being found: there could be little doubt that they were those of the ill-fated Richard de Commins, which had been so fruitlessly searched for: and Lady Averil was full of excitement. Perhaps it was natural that she should be so, being a Godolphin.
“It is most strange that they should be found just now,” she cried; “at the very time that the Dark Plain is being done away with. ”

“ She must have plunged into the trees again. But George was in too much haste then to see Mr. Verrall, to puzzle himself about Charlotte. He crossed to the terrace, and rang the bell.
Were the servants making merry? He had to ring again. A tolerable peal this time. Its echoes might have been heard at Ashlydyat.
“Is Mr. Verrall at home?”
“No, sir. Mrs. Pain is.”
“Mrs. Pain is not,” thought George to himself. But he followed the man to the drawing-room.
To his indescribable astonishment, there sat Charlotte, at work. She was in evening dress, her gown and hair interlaced with jewels. ”

“ Dangerous eyes were those of Charlotte Pain’s! And not altogether lovable.
“Do you always keep your promises as you kept that one yesterday?” she was asking him.
“I did not make a promise yesterday—that I remember. Had I made one to you, I should have kept it.”
“Fickle and faithless,” she cried. “Men’s promises are as words traced upon the sand. When you met me yesterday in the carriage with Mrs. Verrall, and she asked you to take compassion on two forlorn dames, and come to Ashlydyat in the evening and dissipate our ennui, what was your answer?” ”

“ But after he became Sir George (not that the title had anything to do with it) public local business grew upon him, and he found it inconvenient to quit Ashlydyat. He explained this to Lady Godolphin: and said their sojourn in Scotland must be confined to an autumn visit. So she perforce dragged out her days at Ashlydyat, idle and listless.
We warn our children that idleness is the root of all evil; that it will infallibly lead into mischief those who indulge in it. It so led Lady Godolphin. One day, as she was looking from her drawing-room windows, wishing all sorts of things. ”

“ They were inwardly rebellious enough at having to leave it.”
“I am sure that Thomas would not take up his residence here, as the master of Ashlydyat, during my lifetime. Another thing: we should not be justified in keeping up two expensive establishments outside the town, leaving the house at the bank to lie idle. People might lose confidence in us, if they saw us launching forth into extravagance.” ”