Part 7 (1/2)
”I was obliged to come this morning, mamma,” she said, when greetings had pa.s.sed. ”Some of my things are still here which I wish to take, and I must collect them and send them to the Folly. We start early on Monday morning; everything must be packed to-day.”
”One would suppose you were off for a year, Maria,” exclaimed Mr.
Hastings, ”to hear you talk of 'collecting your things.' How many trunk-loads have you already at the Folly?”
”Only two, papa,” she replied, laughing, and wondering why Mr. Hastings should speak so sternly. ”They are chiefly trifles that I have come for; books, and other things: not clothes.”
”Your papa thought it likely that Lady G.o.dolphin would not now go, as the fine weather seems to be leaving us,” said Mrs. Hastings.
”Oh yes, she will,” replied Maria. ”Her mind is fully made up. Did you not know that the orders had already been sent into Berwicks.h.i.+re? And some of the servants went on this morning?”
”Great ladies change their minds sometimes,” remarked Mr. Hastings in a cynical tone.
Maria shook her head. She had untied her bonnet-strings, and was unfastening her mantle. ”Sir George, who has risen to breakfast since Thursday, asked Lady G.o.dolphin this morning whether it would not be late for Scotland, and she resented the remark. What do you think she said, mamma? That if there was nothing else to take her to Scotland, this absurd rumour, of the Shadow's having come again, would drive her thither.”
”What's that, Maria?” demanded the clergyman in a sharp, displeased accent.
”A rumour has arisen, papa, that the Shadow is appearing at Ashlydyat.
It was seen on Wednesday night. On Thursday night, some of us went to the ash-trees----”
”_You_ went?” interrupted the Rector.
”Yes, papa,” she answered, her voice growing timid, for he spoke in a tone of great displeasure. ”I, and Miss G.o.dolphin, and Bessy. We were not alone: George G.o.dolphin was with us.”
”And what did you see?” eagerly interposed Mrs. Hastings, who possessed more of the organ of marvel in her composition than her husband.
”Mamma, we saw nothing. Only the Dark Plain lying quietly under the moonlight. There appeared to be nothing to see; nothing unusual.”
”But that I hear you say this with my own ears, I should not have believed you capable of giving utterance to folly so intense,” sternly exclaimed Mr. Hastings to his daughter. ”Are you the child of Christian parents? have you received an enlightened education?”
Maria's eyelids fell under the reproof, and the soft colour in her cheeks deepened.
”That a daughter of mine should confess to running after a 'shadow'!” he continued, really with more asperity than the case seemed to need. But the Rector of All Souls' was one who would have deemed it little less heresy to doubt his Bible, than to countenance a tale of superst.i.tion.
He repudiated such with the greatest contempt: he never, even though proof positive had been brought before his eyes, could accord to it an iota of credence. ”An absurd tale of a 'shadow,' worthy only to be told to those who, in their blind credulity, formerly burnt poor creatures as witches; worthy only to amuse the ears of ignorant urchins, whom we put into our fields to frighten away the crows! And _my daughter_ has lent herself to it! Can this be the result of your training, madam?”--turning angrily to his wife. ”Or of mine?”
”I did not run after it from my own curiosity; I went because the rest went,” answered poor Maria in her confusion, all too conscious that the stolen moonlight walk with Mr. George G.o.dolphin had been a far more powerful motive to the expedition than the ”Shadow.” ”Miss Pain saw it on Wednesday night; Margery saw it----”
”Will you cease?” broke forth the Rector. ”'Saw it!' If they said they saw it they must have been labouring under a delusion; or else were telling a deliberate untruth. And you do not know better than to repeat such ignorance! What would Sir George think of you?”
”I should not mention it in his presence, papa. Or in Lady G.o.dolphin's.”
”Neither shall you in mine. It is not possible”--Mr. Hastings stood before her and fixed his eyes sternly upon hers--”that you can believe in it?”
”I think not, papa,” she answered in her strict truth. To truth, at any rate, she had been trained, whether by father or by mother; and she would not violate it even to avoid displeasure. ”I think that my feeling upon the point is curiosity; not belief.”
”Then that curiosity implies belief,” sternly replied the Rector. ”If a man came to me and said, 'There's an elephant out there, in the garden,'
and I went forth to see, would not that prove my belief in the a.s.sertion?”
Maria was no logician; or she had answered, ”No, you might go to prove the error of the a.s.sertion.” ”Indeed, papa, if I know anything of myself, I am not a believer in it,” she repeated, her cheeks growing hotter and hotter. ”If I were once to see the Shadow, why then----”
”Be silent!” he cried, not allowing her to continue. ”I shall think next I am talking to that silly dreamer, Janet G.o.dolphin. Is it she who has imbued you with this tone of mind?”
Maria shook her head. There was an undercurrent of consciousness, lying deep in her heart, that if a ”tone” upon the point had been insensibly acquired by her, it was caught from one far more precious to her heart, far more essential to her very existence, than was Janet G.o.dolphin. That last Thursday night, in running with George G.o.dolphin after this tale of the Shadow, his arm cast lovingly round her, she had acquired the impression, from a few words he let fall, that he must put faith in it.