The Shadow of Ashlydyat. Henry Wood
glanced at Sir George, as if to draw her attention to him. “My father’s anxiety will not allow him to wait, Lady Godolphin. I think it well that we should catch the first train.”
“I wash my hands of the journey altogether,” said Lady Godolphin. “If Sir George does not reach the other end of it alive, you will have the goodness to remember that I am not to blame. Far better that he were safely kept in his room wrapped up in his dressing-gown in front of a good fire.”
“In that case, my lady, I would not answer for it that he reached the end of the day alive,” interposed Margery, who was in and out of the room busier than any of them. “Whether Sir George stays, or whether he goes, he’ll not last many days,” she added in a lower tone, so that it might not reach her master’s ear.
“If I must have gone, I would have started at a Christian hour, Sir George,” resumed his wife. “Getting us all out of bed as if we were so many milkmaids?”
Sir George looked round, timidity in his voice and manner. Did he fear that she would detain him even now? “You can come on afterwards, you know, Lady Godolphin; we need not hurry you. Oh, I must, I must be at Ashlydyat!”
Thomas Godolphin came to the rescue. “We shall be in the carriage in five minutes, my dear father, if you will only take your breakfast.”
And in a little more than five minutes they were seated in it, on their way to the station, Sir George’s own man and Margery attending them. Margery would have deemed it just as possible to cut herself in twain, as to be separated from her master in his present state.
They did not get him that night to Prior’s Ash. Thomas feared the long journey for him without a break, so they halted for the night about midway. Singularly to state, Sir George did not utter an impatient word at the delay: from the moment of leaving Broomhead he had become perfectly calm. Whether the fact of his being indisputably on the road had soothed his mind to tranquillity, or whether the strangely eager desire to be home had now left it, certain it was, that he had never mentioned Ashlydyat throughout the day. Of one thing there could be no doubt—that he was fast sinking. Sinking both in mind and body. Margery grew terrified. “Pray Heaven we may get him home!” she aspirated. “Mr. Thomas, as sure as that we are here, he would have been dead before this, had he stopped at Broomhead!”
In the twilight of the second evening, Sir George was at length once more at Prior’s Ash. Thomas had telegraphed their arrival, and Janet was at the station with the carriage. But, with the first few words, Janet perceived that he was perfectly childish. Not only childish, but alarmingly changed. Janet grew pale as she turned to Margery.
“Since when?” she murmured.
“Since many days, off and on; but worse since we left Broomhead yesterday morning. He has been sinking hour by hour. Miss Janet, it’s death.”
They got him to the Folly. And, in half an hour, the whole of his family were gathered round his death-bed. His partner, Mr. Crosse; the surgeon; and the Rector of All Souls’ were also there.
He was rambling for the most part in a disconnected manner: but he recognized them all individually, and occasionally gave utterance to rational remarks, as he might have done had he been in full possession of his senses. He fancied himself at Ashlydyat.
“I could not have died away from it, you know, Crosse,” he suddenly cried to that gentleman. “Thomas was for bringing me back to the Folly, but I told him I must go to Ashlydyat. If I did let it to strangers, they could not keep me out of it, when I wanted to go there to die. A Godolphin must not die away from Ashlydyat. Where’s Cecil?” he added, after a pause.
Poor Cecil, the tears streaming down her cheeks, was close to him; in view then. “I am here, papa.”
The knight laid his hand upon her arm—or rather, essayed to do so, but it fell again. His thoughts seemed to pass to another subject.
“Crosse, I have been telling Thomas that I should not allow more than three per cent. on those deposits. Have you seen Mainwaring lately?”
Mr. Snow stepped forward and administered something in a wine-glass. There appeared to be a difficulty in swallowing, and only part of it was taken. “He grows more restless,” said the surgeon in an undertone.
Sir George’s eyes, as he was slightly raised to take the medicine, had fallen upon some object at the other end of the room, and continued to be strained on it. “Who has changed the position of the cabinet?” he exclaimed, in a stronger tone than he had yet spoken.
It caused them all to turn and look at the spot. A fine old ebony cabinet, inlaid with silver, stood opposite the bed: had stood there ever since they removed to Lady Godolphin’s Folly; transplanted thither from Ashlydyat. In the latter house, it had stood on the right of Sir George’s bed: and his memory had evidently gone back to that. There could not be a better proof that he was fancying himself at Ashlydyat, lying in his own chamber.
“Janet! why have you placed the cabinet there?”
Janet Godolphin bent her head soothingly over him. “My dear father, it shall be moved, if you wish it.”
The knight looked at her, inquiringly for a moment, perhaps not recognizing her. Then he feebly essayed to look beyond her, as if her head interposed between his own view and something behind. “Hush, my dear, I am speaking to your mother. I want to know why she changed the place of the cabinet.”
“We thought you’d like it there, Sir George; that you could see it better there,” interposed Margery, who knew better than most of them how to deal with the sick. “I’ll have it put back before to-morrow morning.”
This satisfied him, and he lay still for a few minutes. They thought, he would sleep. Presently his eyes opened again, and they rested on George.
“George, where’s Charlotte?”
“Who, sir?” demanded George, somewhat taken aback at the question. “Do you mean Charlotte Pain? She is at—she is not here.”
“Are you married yet?”
“Oh no,” said George hastily, while several pairs of wondering eyes were directed towards him, and those of the Reverend Mr. Hastings were of the number. “Time enough for that, father.”
“George!” next came the words, in a hollow whisper this time, “don’t let her die, as Ethel did.”
“Not if I can help it,” replied George, speaking without any serious meaning, except that of humouring his father.
“And don’t let Verrall go off the bargain with the money. He is keen that way; but he has no right to touch Charlotte’s. If he does—Bessy, is Jekyl dead?”
“Oh no, papa,” said Bessy, suppressing her tears as she caressed her father’s hand: it was in stooping to do this, that the knight had observed her. “Jekyl is well and hearty yet, and he asked after you to-day. He heard you were coming home.”
“Ay! All well and hearty, but me. But it is the will of God to take me, and He knows what’s best. Where’s Thomas?”
“I am here, father,” replied Thomas Godolphin, leaning, forward so that his father could see him.
Sir George tried to put up his hand with a beckoning gesture. Thomas understood it: he bent his face close to that pale one, and clasped the nearly inanimate hand in his, listening reverently to the whisper that was breathed so solemnly.
“Thomas, I charge you, never quit Ashlydyat.”
“I will not,” replied Thomas Godolphin.
“If you bring one home to it, and she would urge you to quit it, urge you until you have no will of your own left, do not yield to it. Do not listen to her. Break with her, let her go forth alone, rather than quit Ashlydyat.”
“Father, I will never, of my own free will, leave Ashlydyat. I promise you that, so far as I can hold control over human events, I will live and die in it.”
Certainly Sir George understood the promise and its meaning. There could be no mistaking that he did so, by the smile of content