The Shadow of Ashlydyat Part 66

Enclosing the packet in a stout envelope, which he directed, he went out, and dropped it into the post-office at the opposite corner of Crosse Street. Very soon he was on his way to Lady G.o.dolphin's Folly, bearing with him the small parcel sent by Mrs. Verrall--a sufficient excuse for calling there, had George required an excuse. Which he did not.

It was a light night; as it had been the previous night, though the moon was not yet very high. He gained the turnstile at the end of the Ash-tree Walk--where he had been startled by the apparition of Thomas, and where Isaac Hastings had seen Charlotte Pain that morning--and turned into the open way to the right. A few paces more, and he struck into the narrow pathway which would lead him through the grove of trees, leaving Ashlydyat and its approaches to the left.

Did George G.o.dolphin love the darkness, that he should choose that way?

Last night and again to-night he had preferred it. It was most unusual for any one to approach the Folly by that obscure path. A few paces round, and he would have skirted the thicket, would have gone on to the Folly in the bright, open moonlight. Possibly George scarcely noticed that he chose it: full of thought, was he, just then.

He went along with his head down. What were his reflections? Was he wis.h.i.+ng that he could undo the deeds of the last hour--replace in that tin case what he had taken from it? Was he wis.h.i.+ng that he could undo the deeds of the last few _years_--be again a man without a cloud on his brow, a heavier cloud on his heart? It was too late: he could recall neither the one nor the other. The deed was already on its way to London; the years had rolled into the awful Past, with its doings, bad and good, recorded on high.

What was that? George lifted his head and his ears. A murmur of suppressed voices, angry voices, too, sounded near him, in one of which George thought he recognized the tones of Charlotte Pain. He went through to an intersecting path, so narrow that one person could with difficulty walk down it, just as a scream rang out on the night air.

Panting, scared, breathless, her face distorted with fear or pa.s.sion, as much as George could see of it in the shaded light, her gauze dress torn by every tree with which it came in contact, flying down the narrow pathway, came Charlotte Pain. And--unless George G.o.dolphin was strangely mistaken--some one else was flying in equal terror in the opposite direction, as if they had just parted.

"Charlotte! What is it? Who has alarmed you?"

In the moment's first impulse he caught hold of her to protect her; in the second, he loosed his hold, and made after the other fugitive. The impression upon George's mind was, that some one, perhaps a stranger, had met Charlotte, and frightened her with rude words.

But Charlotte was as swift as he. She flung her hands around George, and held him there. Strong hands they always were: doubly strong in that moment of agitation. George could not unclasp them: unless he had used violence.

"Stay where you are! Stay where you are, for the love of Heaven!" she gasped. "You must not go."

"What is all this? What is the matter?" he asked in surprise.

She made no other answer. She clung to him with all her weight of strength, her arms and hands straining with the effort, reiterating wildly, "You must not go! you must not go!"

"Nay, I don't care to go," replied George: "it was for your sake I was following. Be calm, Charlotte: there's no necessity for this agitation."

She went on, down the narrow pathway, drawing him with her. The broader path gained--though that also was but a narrow one--she put her arm within his, and turned towards the house. George could see her white frightened face better now, and all the tricks and cosmetics invented could not hide its ghastliness; he felt her heaving pulses; he heard her beating heart.

Bending down to her, he spoke with a soothing whisper. "Tell me what it was that terrified you."

She would not answer. She only pressed his arm with a tighter pressure, lest he might break from her again in pursuit; she hurried onwards with a quicker step. Skirting round the trees, which before the house made a half circle, Charlotte came to the end, and then darted rapidly across the lawn to the terrace and into the house by one of the windows. He followed her.

Her first movement was to close the shutters and bar them: her next to sit down on the nearest chair. Ill as she looked, George could scarcely forbear a smile at her gauze dress: the bottom of its skirt was in shreds.

"Will you let me get you something, Charlotte? Or ring for it?"

"I don't want anything," she answered. "I shall be all right directly.

How could you frighten me so?"

"_I_ frighten you!" returned George. "It was not I who frightened you."

"Indeed it was. You and no one else. Did you not hear me scream?"

"I did."

"It was at you, rustling through the trees," persisted Charlotte. "I had gone out to see if the air would relieve this horrid headache, which has been upon me since last night and won't go away. I strolled into the thicket, thinking all sorts of lonely things, never suspecting that you or any one else could be near me. I wonder I did not faint, as well as scream."

"Charlotte, what nonsense! You were whispering angrily with some one; some one who escaped in the opposite direction. Who was it?"

"I saw no one; I heard no one. Neither was I whispering."

He looked at her intently. That she was telling an untruth he believed, for he felt positive that some second person _had_ been there. "Why did you stop me, then, when I would have gone in pursuit?"

"It was your fault for attempting to leave me," was Charlotte's answer.

"I would not have remained alone for a house full of gold."

"I suppose it is some secret. I think, whatever it may be, Charlotte, you might trust _me_." He spoke significantly, a stress on the last word. Charlotte rose from her seat.

"So I would," she said, "were there anything to confide. Just look at me! My dress is ruined."

"You should take it up if you go amidst clumsy trees, whose rough trunks nearly meet."

"I had it up--until you came," returned Charlotte, jumping upon a chair that she might survey it in one of the side gla.s.ses. "You startled me so that I dropped it. I might have it joined, and a lace flounce put upon it," she mused. "It cost a great deal of money, did this dress, I can tell you, Mr. George."

She jumped off the chair again, and George produced the packet confided to him by Mrs. Verrall.

"I promised her that you should have it to-night," he said. "Hence my unfortunate appearance here, which it seems has so startled you."

"Oh, that's over now. When did you get back again?"

"By the seven o'clock train. I saw Verrall."

"Well?"

"It's not well. It's ill. Do you know what I begin to suspect at times?--That Verrall and every one else is playing me false. I am sick of the world."

"No, he is not, George. If I thought he were, I'd tell you so. I would, on my sacred word of honour. It is not likely that he is. When we are in a bilious mood, everything wears to us a jaundiced tinge. You are in one to-night."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TRADITION OF THE DARK PLAIN.

It is the province of little demoiselles to be naughty: it is their delight to make promises and then break them, all false and fearless--as they may do over other affairs in later life. Miss Meta G.o.dolphin was no exception to the rule. She had gravely promised her uncle Thomas to be a good girl, and not run away to be lost in unfrequented pa.s.sages; yet no sooner had the young lady arrived at Ashlydyat that morning, and been released of her out-door things by Margery, than with a joyously defiant laugh that would have rejoiced the heart of Charlotte Pain, she flew off to that forbidden spot--the unused pa.s.sages. Had the little lady's motive been laid bare, it might have been found to consist simply in the enjoyment of a thing forbidden. Truth to say, Miss Meta was very p.r.o.ne to be disobedient to all persons, excepting one. That one was her mother. Maria had never spoken a sharp word to the child in her life, or used a sharp tone: but she had contrived to train the little one to obey, as well as to love. George, Margery, Mrs. Hastings, Miss Meta would openly disobey, and laugh in their faces while she did it: her mother, never. Meta remembered a scolding she received on the last visit she had paid to Ashlydyat, touching the remote pa.s.sages--she had never found them out until then--and apparently the reminiscence of the scolding was so agreeable that she was longing to have it repeated.

"Now," said Margery, as she concluded the young lady's toilette, "you'll not go up to those old rooms and pa.s.sages to-day, mind, Miss Meta!"

For answer, Miss Meta shook out her golden curls, laughed triumphantly, and started off to the pa.s.sages then and there. Maria had never said to her, "You must not go near those pa.s.sages;" and the commands of the rest of the world went for nothing. Margery remained in blissful ignorance of the disobedience. She supposed the child had run to her mother and the Miss G.o.dolphins. The objection to Meta's being in the pa.s.sages alone had no mysterious element in it. It proceeded solely from a regard to her personal safety. The staircase leading to the turret was unprotected; the loopholes in the turret were open, and a fall from either might cost the young lady her life. These places, the unfrequented pa.s.sages at the back of the second storey, and the staircase leading to the square turret above them, were shut in by a door, which separated them from the inhabited part of the house. This door Miss Meta had learned to open; and away she went, as fancy led her.

Maria was in Miss G.o.dolphin's room, talking to that lady and to Bessy, when a sound overhead caused them to pause.

"Where's Meta?" cried Janet, hastening from the room. "She cannot have gone upstairs again! Margery! Where's the child?"

Margery at that moment happened to be putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches to her own toilette. She came flying without her cap out of one of the many narrow pa.s.sages and windings which intersected each other on that floor.

"The child went off to you, ma'am, as soon as I had put on her pinafore."