Part 130 (2/2)
The young women said that what with his screeching and the two ladies quarrelling, the house weren't bearable sometimes.”
Meta's large eyes were open in wondering speculation. ”Why do they quarrel?” she asked.
”'Cause it's their natur',” returned Mrs. Bond. ”The one what had the sweet natur' was took, and the two fretful ones was left. Them young women said that miss a'most drove my lady mad with her temper, and they expect nothing less but there'd be blows some day. A fine disgraceful thing to say of born ladies, ain't it, ma'am?”
Maria, in her delicacy of feeling, would not endorse the remark of Dame Bond. But the state of things at Lady Sarah Grame's was perfectly well known at Prior's Ash. Sarah Anne Grame had become her mother's bane, as Mr. Snow had once said she would be. A very terrible bane; to herself, to her mother, to all about her. And the ”screeching” parrot had only added a little more noise to an already too noisy house.
Mrs. Bond curtsied herself out. She met Margery in the pa.s.sage, and stopped to whisper.
”I say! how ill she do look!”
”Who looks ill?” was the ungracious demand.
Mrs. Bond nodded towards the parlour door. ”The missis. Her face looks more as if it had death writ in it, than voyage-going.”
”Perhaps you'll walk on your way, Dame Bond, and keep your opinions till they're asked for,” was the tart reply of Margery.
But, in point of fact, the words had darted into the faithful servant's heart, piercing it as a poisoned arrow. It seemed so great a confirmation of her own fears.
CHAPTER V.
COMMOTION AT ASHLYDYAT.
A few more days went on, and they wrought a further change in Mrs.
George G.o.dolphin. She grew weaker and weaker: she grew--it was apparent now to Mr Snow as it was to Margery--nearer and nearer to that vault in the churchyard of All Souls'. There could no longer be any indecision or uncertainty as to her taking the voyage; the probabilities were, that before the s.h.i.+p was ready to sail, all sailing in this world for Maria would be over. And rumours, faint, doubtful, very much discredited rumours of this state of things, began to circulate in Prior's Ash.
Discredited because people were so unprepared for it. Mrs. George G.o.dolphin had been delicate since the birth of her baby, as was known to every one, but not a soul, relatives, friends, or strangers, had felt a suspicion of danger. On the contrary, it was supposed that she was about to depart on that Indian voyage: and ill-natured spirits tossed their heads and said it was fine to be Mrs. George G.o.dolphin, to be set up again and go out to lead a grand life in India, after ruining half Prior's Ash. How she was misjudged! how many more unhappy wives have been, and will be again, misjudged by the world!
One dreary afternoon, as dusk was coming on, Margery, not stopping, or perhaps not caring, to put anything upon herself, but having hastily wrapped up Miss Meta, went quickly down the garden path, leading that excitable and chattering demoiselle by the hand. Curious news had reached the ears of Margery. Their landlady's son had come in, describing the town as being in strange commotion, in consequence of something which had happened at Ashlydyat. Rumour set it down as nothing less than murder; and, according to the boy's account, all Prior's Ash was flocking up to the place to see and to hear.
Margery turned wrathful at the news. Murder at Ashlydyat! The young gentleman was too big to be boxed or shaken for saying it, but he persisted in his story, and Margery in her curiosity went out to see with her own eyes. ”The people are running past the top of this road in crowds,” he said to her.
For some days past, workmen had been employed digging up the Dark Plain by the orders of Lord Averil. As he had told Cecil weeks before, his intention was to completely renew it; to do away entirely with its past character and send its superst.i.tion to the winds. The archway was being taken down, the gorse-bushes were being uprooted, the whole surface, in fact, was being dug up. He intended to build an extensive summer-house where the archway had been, and to make the plain a flower-garden, a playground for children when they should be born to Ashlydyat: and it appeared that in digging that afternoon under the archway, the men had come upon a human skeleton, or rather upon the bones of what had once been a skeleton. This was the whole foundation for the rumour and the ”murder.”
As Margery stood, about to turn home again, vexed for having been brought out in the cold for nothing more, and intending to give a few complimentary thanks for it to the young man who had been the means of sending her, she was accosted by Mr. Crosse, who had latterly been laid up in his house with gout. Not the slightest notice had he taken of George G.o.dolphin and his wife since his return home, though he had been often with Thomas.
”How d'ye do, Margery?” he said, taking up Meta at the same time to kiss her. ”Are you going to Ashlydyat with the rest?”
”Not I, the simpletons!” was Margery's free rejoinder. ”There's my poor mistress alone in the house.”
”Is she ill?” asked Mr. Crosse.
”Ill!” returned Margery, not at all pleased at the question. ”Yes, sir, she is ill. I thought everybody knew that.”
”When does she start for India?”
”She don't start at all. She'll be starting soon for a place a little bit nearer. Here! you run on and open the gate,” added Margery, whisking Meta from Mr. Crosse's hand and sending her down the lane out of hearing. ”She'll soon be where Mr. Thomas G.o.dolphin is, sir, instead of being marched off in a s.h.i.+p to India,” continued the woman, turning to Mr. Crosse confidentially.
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