Part 68 (1/2)

”It could not have been done effectually,” was Bessy's answer. ”Papa must have had lazy men at work, who left the roots in. I would dig it all up and make a ploughed field of it.”

”Did he do any other harm--that Wicked G.o.dolphin?” asked Maria.

”He! Other harm!” reiterated Janet, something like indignation at Maria's question mingling with surprise in her tone. ”Don't you know that it was he who gambled away Ashlydyat? After that second marriage of his, he took to worse and worse courses. It was said that his second wife proved a match for him, and they lived together like two evil demons. All things considered, it was perhaps a natural sequence that they should so live,” added Janet, severely. ”And in the end he cut off the entail and gambled away the estate. Many years elapsed before the G.o.dolphins could recover it.”

Maria was longing to put a question. She had heard that there were other superst.i.tious marvels attaching to Ashlydyat, but she scarcely liked to mention them to the Miss G.o.dolphins. George never would explain anything: he always turned it off, with laughing raillery.

”You--think--that Ashlydyat will pa.s.s away from the G.o.dolphins, Janet?”

Janet shook her head. ”We have been reared in the belief,” she answered.

”That the estate is to pa.s.s finally away from them, the G.o.dolphins have been taught to fear ever since that unhappy time. Each generation, as they have come into possession, have accepted it as an uncertain tenure: as a thing that might last them for their time, or might pa.s.s away from them ere their earthly sojourn was completed. The belief was; nay, the tradition was; that so long as a reigning G.o.dolphin held by Ashlydyat, Ashlydyat would hold by him and his. My father was the first to break it.”

Janet had taken up her dress, and sat down on a dusty, faded bench, the only article of furniture of any description that the square room contained. That strangely speculative look--it was scarcely an earthly one--had come into her eyes: and though she answered when spoken to, she appeared to be lost in sad, inward thought. Maria, somewhat awed with the turn the conversation had taken, with the words altogether, stood against the opposite window, her delicate hands clasped before her, her face slightly bent forward, pale and grave.

”Then, do you fear that the end for the G.o.dolphins is at hand?”

”I seem to _see_ that it is,” replied Janet. ”I have looked for it ever since my father left Ashlydyat. I might say--but that I should be laughed at more than I am for an idealist--that the strangers to whom he resigned it in his place, would have some bearing upon our fall, would in some way conduce to it. I think of these things ever,” continued Janet, almost as if she would apologize for the wildness of the confession. ”They seem to unfold themselves to me, to become clear and more clear: to be no longer fanciful fears darting across the brain, but realities of life.”

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 pa.s.s, Maria; talking of it will not avert it: indeed, I do not know how I came to be betrayed into speaking of it openly.”

”But you have not told me about the sounds in the pa.s.sages?” urged Maria, as Janet rose from her dusty seat.

”There is nothing more to tell. Peculiar sounds, as if caused by the wind, are heard. Moaning, sighing, rus.h.i.+ng--the pa.s.sages at times seem alive with them. It is said to come as a reminder to the G.o.dolphins of a worse sound that will sometime be heard, when Ashlydyat shall be pa.s.sing 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.”

”And it is not caused by the wind?”

Janet shook her head in dissent. ”It has come on the calmest and stillest night, when there has not been a breath of air to move the leaves of the ash-trees.”

Bessy turned from her pastime of watching Charlotte Pain: she had taken little part in the conversation.

”I wonder at you, Janet. You will be setting Maria against Ashlydyat.

She will be frightened to come into it, should it lapse to George.”

Maria looked at her with a smile. ”I should have no fear with him, superst.i.tious or otherwise. If George took me to live in the catacombs, I could be brave with him.”

Ever the same blind faith; the unchanged love for her husband. Better, far better, that it should be so!

”For my part, I am content to take life and its good as I find it, and not waste my time in unprofitable dreams,” was the practical remark of Bessy. ”If any ill is to come, it must come; but there's no need to look out for it beforehand.”