Part 136 (1/2)
It was quite the same to Lord Averil, whether the young lady was bundled up as she was now, or decked out in a lace frock and crinoline. He led her down the path, talking pleasantly; but Meta's breath was caught up incessantly with sobbing sighs. Her heart was full, imperfect as her idea of the calamity overshadowing her necessarily was.
Thus it happened that Miss Meta was not at hand when Maria asked for her. Whether it was from this, or from causes wholly unconnected with it, in a short time Maria grew restless: restless, as it seemed, both in body and mind, and it was deemed advisable that she should not sit up longer.
”Go for Meta while they get me into bed, George,” she said to him. ”I want her to be near me.”
He went out at once. But he did not immediately turn to Ashlydyat: with hasty steps he took the road to Mr. Snow's. There had been a yearning on George G.o.dolphin's mind, ever since he first saw his wife in the afternoon, to put the anxious question to one or both of the medical men: ”Can nothing be done to prolong her life, even for the shortest s.p.a.ce of time?”
Mr. Snow was out: the surgery boy did not know where: ”Paying visits,”
he supposed, and George turned his steps to Dr. Beale's, who lived now in Prior's Ash, though he used not to live in it. Dr. Beale's house was ablaze with light, and Dr. Beale was at home, the servant said, but he had a dinner-party.
How the words seemed to grate on his ear! A dinner-party!--gaiety, lights, noise, mirth, eating and drinking, when his wife was dying! But the next moment reflection came to him: the approaching death of a patient is not wont to cast its influence on a physician's private life.
He demanded to see Dr. Beale in spite of the dinner-party. George G.o.dolphin forgot recent occurrences, exacting still the deference paid to him all his life, when Prior's Ash had bowed down to the G.o.dolphins.
He was shown into a room, and Dr. Beale came out to him.
But the doctor, though he would willingly have smoothed matters to him, could not give him hope. George asked for the truth, and he had it--that his wife's life now might be counted by hours. He went out and proceeded towards Ashlydyat, taking the near way down Crosse Street, by the Bank--the Bank that once was: it would lead him through the dull Ash-tree Walk with its ghostly story; but what cared George G.o.dolphin?
Did a remembrance of the past come over him as he glanced up at the Bank's well-known windows?--a remembrance that p.r.i.c.ked him with its sharp sting? He need never have left that house; but for his own recklessness, folly, wickedness--call it what you will--he might have been in it still, one of the honoured G.o.dolphins, heir to Ashlydyat, his wife well and happy by his side. Now!--he went striding on with wide steps, and he took off his hat and raised his burning brow to the keen night air. You may leave the house behind you, George G.o.dolphin, and so put it out of your sight, but you cannot blot out your memory.
Grace had remained with Maria. She was in bed now, but the restlessness seemed to continue. ”I want Meta; bring Meta.”
”Dear Maria, your husband has but just gone for her,” breathed Grace.
”She will soon be here.”
It seemed to satisfy her. She lay still, looking upwards, her breath, or Mrs. Akeman fancied it, growing shorter. Grace, hot tears blinding her eyes, bent forward to kiss her wasted cheek.
”Maria, I was very harsh to you,” she whispered. ”I feel it now. I can only pray G.o.d to forgive me. I loved you always, and when that dreadful trouble came, I felt angry for your sake. I said unkind things to you and of you, but in the depth of my heart there lay the pain and the anger because you suffered. Will _you_ forgive me?”
She raised her feeble hand and laid it lovingly on the cheek of Grace.
”There is nothing to forgive, Grace,” she murmured. ”What are our poor little offences one against the other? Think how much Heaven has to forgive us all. Oh, Grace, I am going to it! I am going away from care.”
Grace stood up to dash away her tears; but they came faster and faster.
”I would ask you to let me atone to you, Maria,” she sobbed--”I would ask you to let me welcome Meta to our home. We are not rich, but we have enough for comfort, and I will try to bring her up a good woman; I will love her as my own child.”
”She goes to Cecil.” There was no attempt at thanks in words--Maria was growing beyond it; nothing but the fresh touch of the hand's loving pressure. And that relaxed with the next moment and fell upon the bed.
Grace felt somewhat alarmed. She cleared the mist from her eyes and bent them steadily on Maria's face. It seemed to have changed. ”Do you feel worse?” she softly asked.
Maria opened her lips, but no sound came from them. She attempted to point with her finger to the door; she then threw her eyes in the same direction; but why or what she wanted it was impossible to tell. Grace, her heart beating wildly, flew across the little hall to the kitchen.
”Oh, Margery, I think she is sinking! Come you and see.”
Margery hastened in. Her mistress evidently _was_ sinking, and was conscious of it. The eager, anxious look upon her face and her raised hand proved that she was wanting something.
”Is it my master?--Is it the child?” cried Margery, bending over her.
”They won't be long, ma'am.”
It was Margery's habit to soothe the dying, even if she had to do it at some little expense of veracity. She knew that her master could not go to Ashlydyat and be home just yet: she did not know of his visits to the houses of the doctors: but if she had known it she would equally have said, ”They won't be long.”