Part 104 (1/2)

Thomas G.o.dolphin proceeded to the room where she had been shown. She was not sitting, but pacing it to and fro; and she turned sharply round and met him as he entered, her face flushed with excitement.

”You were once to have been my son-in-law,” she said abruptly.

Thomas, astonished at the address, invited her to a seat, but made no immediate reply. She would not take the chair.

”I cannot sit,” she said. ”Mr. G.o.dolphin, you were to have been my son-in-law: you would have been so now had Ethel lived. Do you consider Ethel to be any link between us still?”

He was quite at a loss what to answer. He did not understand what she meant. Lady Sarah continued.

”If you do; if you retain any fond remembrance of Ethel; you will prove it now. I had seven hundred pounds in your Bank. I have been sc.r.a.ping and saving out of my poor yearly income nearly ever since Ethel went; and I had placed it there. Can you deny it?”

”Dear Lady Sarah, what is the matter?” he asked; for her excitement was something frightful. ”I know you had it there. Why should I deny it?”

”Oh, that's right. People have been saying the Bank was going to repudiate all claims. I want you to give it me. Now: privately.”

”It is impossible for me to do so, Lady Sarah----”

”I cannot lose it; I have been saving it up for my poor child,” she interrupted, in a most excited tone. ”She will not have much when I am dead. Would you be so cruel as to rob the widow and the orphan?”

”Not willingly. Never willingly,” he answered in his pain. ”I had thought, Lady Sarah, that though all the world misjudged me, you would not.”

”Could you not, you who were to have married Ethel, have given me a private hint of it when you found the Bank was going wrong? Others may afford to lose their money, but I cannot.”

”I did not know it was going wrong,” he said. ”The blow has fallen upon me as unexpectedly as it has upon others.”

Lady Sarah Grame, giving vent to one of the fits of pa.s.sionate excitement to which she had all her life been subject, suddenly flung herself upon her knees before Thomas G.o.dolphin. She implored him to return the money, to avert ”ruin” from Sarah Anne; she reproached him with selfishness, with dishonesty, all in a breath. Can you imagine what it was for Thomas G.o.dolphin to meet this? Upright, gifted with lively conscientiousness, tenderly considerate in rendering strict justice to others, as he had been all his life, these unmerited reproaches were as iron entering his soul.

Which was the more to be pitied, himself or Maria? Thomas had called the calamity by its right name--a fiery trial. It was indeed such: to him and to her. You, who read, cannot picture it. How he got rid of Lady Sarah, he could scarcely tell: he believed it was by her pa.s.sion spending itself out. She was completely beside herself that night, almost as one who verges on insanity, and Thomas found a moment to ask himself whether that uncontrolled woman could be the mother of gentle Ethel. Her loud voice and its reproaches penetrated to the household--an additional drop of bitterness in the cup of the master of Ashlydyat.

But we must go back to Maria, for it is with her this evening that we have most to do. Between seven and eight o'clock Miss Meta arrived, attended by Charlotte Pain. Meta was in the height of glee. She was laden with toys and sweetmeats; she carried a doll as big as herself: she had been out in the carriage; she had had a ride on Mrs. Pain's brown horse, held on by that lady; she had swung ”above the tops of the trees;” and, more than all, a message had come from the keeper of the dogs in the pit-hole, to say that they were never, never coming out again.

Charlotte had been generously kind to the child; that was evident; and Maria thanked her with her eyes and heart. As to saying much in words, that was beyond Maria to-night.

”Where's Margery?” asked Meta, in a hurry to show off her treasures.

Margery had not returned. And there was no other train now from the direction in which she had gone. It was supposed that she had missed it, and would be home in the morning. Meta drew a long face; she wanted Margery to admire the doll.

”You can go and show it to Harriet, dear,” said Maria. ”She is in the nursery.” And Meta flew away, with the doll and as many other enc.u.mbrances as she could carry.

”Have those bankruptcy men been here?” asked Charlotte, glancing round the room.

”No. I have seen nothing of them.”

”Well now, there's time yet, and do for goodness' sake let me save some few trifles for you; and don't fret yourself into fiddle-strings,”

heartily returned Charlotte. ”I am quite sure you must have some treasures that it would be grief to part with. I have been thinking all day long how foolishly scrupulous you are.”

Maria was silent for a minute. ”They look into everything, you say?” she asked.

”_Look_ into everything!” echoed Charlotte. ”I should think they do!

That would be little. They take everything.”