The Shadow of Ashlydyat. Henry Wood
bowed his head.
“What form does it take?”
George Godolphin did not answer. He appeared lost in thought, as he scored his horse’s neck with his hunting-whip.
“The form of a bier, on which rests something covered with a pall, that may be supposed to be a coffin; with a mourner at the head and one at the foot?” she whispered.
He bowed his head again: very gravely.
“Then I saw it last night. I did indeed. I was sitting under the ash-trees, and I saw a strange shadow in the moonlight that I had never seen before–”
“Where?” he interrupted.
“In that wild-looking part of the grounds as you look across from the ash-trees. Just in front of the archway, where the ground is bare. It was there. Mr. Verrall says he wonders Sir George does not have those gorse-bushes cleared away, and the ground converted into civilized land, like the rest of it.”
“It has been done, but the bushes grow again.”
“Well, I was sitting there, and I saw this unusual shadow. It arrested my eye at once. Where did it come from, I wondered: what cast it? I never thought of the Ashlydyat superstition; never for a moment. I only thought what a strange appearance the shadow wore. I thought of a lying-in-state; I thought of a state funeral, where the coffin rests on a bier, and a mourner sits at the head and a mourner at the foot. Shall I tell you,” she suddenly broke off, “what the scene altogether looked like?”
“Do so.”
“Like a graveyard. They may well call it the Dark Plain! The shadow might be taken for a huge tomb with two images weeping over it, and the bushes around assumed the form of lesser ones. Some, square; some, long; some, high; some, low; but all looking not unlike graves in the moonlight.”
“Moonlight shadows are apt to bear fanciful forms to a vivid imagination, Miss Pain,” he lightly observed.
“Have not others indulged the same fancy before me? I remember to have heard so.”
“As they have said. They never took the form to my sight,” he returned, with a half-smile of ridicule. “When I know bushes to be bushes, I cannot by any stretch of imagination magnify them into graves. You must have had this Ashlydyat nonsense in your head.”
“I have assured you that I had not,” she rejoined in a firm tone. “It was only after I had been regarding it for some time—and the longer I looked, the plainer the shadow seemed to grow—that I thought of the Ashlydyat tale. All in an instant the truth flashed upon me—that it must be the apparition–”
“The what, Miss Pain?”
“Does the word offend you? It is a foolish one. The Shadow, then. I remembered that the Shadow, so dreaded by the Godolphins, did take the form of a bier, with mourners weeping at its–”
“Was said to take it,” he interposed, in a tone of quiet reproof; “that would be the better phrase. And, in speaking of the Shadow being dreaded by the Godolphins, you allude, I presume, to the Godolphins of the past ages. I know of none in the present who dread it: except my superstitious sister, Janet.”
“How touchy you are upon the point!” she cried, with a light laugh. “Do you know, George Godolphin, that that very touchiness betrays the fact that you, for one, are not exempt from the dread. And,” she added, changing her tone again to one of serious sympathy, “did not the dread help to kill Mrs. Godolphin?”
“No,” he gravely answered. “If you give ear to all the stories that the old wives of the neighbourhood love to indulge in, you will collect a valuable stock of fable-lore.”
“Let it pass. If I repeated the fable, it was because I had heard it. But now you will understand why I felt vexed last night when you did not come. It was not for your sweet company I was pining, as your vanity has been assuming, but that I wanted you to see the Shadow.—How that girl is fixing her eyes upon us!”
George Godolphin turned at the last sentence, which was uttered abruptly. An open barouche had drawn up, and its occupants, two ladies, were both looking towards them. The one was a young girl with a pale gentle face and dark eyes, as remarkable for their refined sweetness, as Miss Pain’s were for their brilliancy. The other was a little lady of middle age, dressed youthfully, and whose naturally fair complexion was so excessively soft and clear, as to give a suspicion that nature had less hand in it than art. It was Lady Godolphin. She held her eye-glass to her eye, and turned it on the crowd.
“Maria, whatever is that on horseback?” she asked. “It looks green.”
“It is Charlotte Pain in a bright-green riding-habit,” was the young lady’s answer.
“A bright-green riding-habit! And her head seems to glitter! Has she anything in her cap?”
“It appears to be a gold feather.”
“She must look beautiful! Very handsome, does she not?”
“For those who admire her style—very,” replied Maria Hastings.
Which was certainly not the style of Maria Hastings. Quiet, retiring, gentle, she could only wonder at those who dressed in bright-coloured habits with gold buttons and feathers, and followed the hounds over gates and ditches. Miss Hastings wore a pretty white silk bonnet, and grey cashmere mantle. Nothing could be plainer; but then, she was a clergyman’s daughter.
“It is on these occasions that I regret my deficient sight,” said Lady Godolphin. “Who is that, in scarlet, talking to her? It resembles the figure of George Godolphin.”
“It is he,” said Maria. “He is coming towards us.”
He was piloting his horse through the throng, returning greetings from every one. A universal favourite was George Godolphin. Charlotte Pain’s fine eyes were following him with somewhat dimmed brilliancy: he was not so entirely hers as she could wish to see him.
“How are you this morning, Lady Godolphin?” But it was on the hand of Maria Hastings that his own lingered; and her cheeks took the hue of Charlotte Pain’s, as he bent low to whisper words that were all too dear.
“George, do you know that your father is here?” said Lady Godolphin.
George, in his surprise, drew himself upright on his horse. “My father here! Is he, indeed?”
“Yes; and on horseback. Very unwise of him; but he would not be persuaded out of it. It was a sudden resolution that he appeared to take. I suppose the beauty of the morning tempted him. Miss Maria Hastings, what nonsense has George been saying to you? Your face is as red as his coat.”
“That is what I was saying to her,” laughed George Godolphin. “Asking her where her cheeks had borrowed their roses from.”
A parting of the crowd brought Sir George Godolphin within view, and the family drew together in a group. Up went Lady Godolphin’s glass again.
“Is that Bessy? My dear, with whom did you come?”
“I came by myself, Lady Godolphin. I walked.”
“Oh dear!” uttered Lady Godolphin. “You do do the wildest things, Bessy! And Sir George allows you to do them!”
“Sir George does not,” spoke the knight. “Sir George has already desired her to take her place in the carriage. Open the door, James.”
Bessy laughed as she stepped into it. She cheerfully obeyed her father; but anything like ceremony, or, as the world may call it, etiquette, she waged war with.
“I expected to meet your sisters here, Bessy,” said Lady Godolphin. “I want you all to dine with me to-day. We must celebrate the first reappearance of your father. You will bear the invitation to them.”
“Certainly,” said Bessy. “We shall be happy to come. I know Janet has no engagement.”
“An early dinner, mind: five o’clock. Sir George cannot wait.”
“To dine at supper-time,” chimed in unfashionable