The Shadow of Ashlydyat. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ he should be master. “Yes,” he answered. “And George would come here.”

      “There it is!” said Janet. “Would George live here? I do not feel sure that he would.”

      “Of course he would, Janet. He would live here with you, as I do now. That is a perfectly understood thing.”

      “Does he so understand it?”

      “He understands it, and approves it.”

      Janet shook her head. “George likes his liberty; he will not be content to settle down to the ways of a sober household.”

      “Nay, Janet, you must remember one thing. When George shall come to this house, he comes, so to say, as its master. He will not, of course, interfere with your arrangements; he will fall in with them readily; but neither will he, nor must he, be under your control. To attempt anything of the sort again would not do.”

      Janet knitted on in silence. She had essayed to keep Master George in hand when they first came to the bank to live there: and the result was that he had chosen a separate home, where he could be entirely en garçon.

      “Eh me!” sighed Janet. “If young men could but see the folly of their ways—as they see them in after-life!”

      “Therefore, Janet, I say that it would be exceedingly inadvisable for you to quit the house,” continued Thomas Godolphin, leaving her remark unnoticed. “It might be, that before you were well out of it, you must return to it.”

      “I see the inconvenience also; the uncertainty,” she answered. “But there is no help for it.”

      “Yes there is. Janet, I wish you would let me settle it.”

      “How would you settle it?”

      “By bringing Ethel here. On a visit to you.”

      Janet laid down her knitting. “What do you mean? That there should be two mistresses in the house, she and I? No, no, Thomas; the daftest old wife in the parish would tell you that does not do.”

      “Not two mistresses. You would be sole mistress, as you are now: I and Ethel your guests. Janet, indeed it would be the better plan. By the spring we should see how Sir George went on. If he improved, then the question could be definitively settled: and either you or I would take up our residence elsewhere. If he does not improve, I fear, Janet, that spring will have seen the end.”

      Something in the words appeared particularly to excite Janet’s attention. She gazed at Thomas as if she would search him through and through. “By spring!” she repeated. “When, then, do you contemplate marrying Ethel?”

      “I should like her to be mine by Christmas,” was the low answer.

      “Thomas! And December close upon us!”

      “If not, some time in January,” he continued, paying no attention to her surprise. “It is so decided.”

      Miss Godolphin drew a long breath. “With whom is it decided?”

      “With Ethel.”

      “You would marry a wife without a home to bring her to? Had thoughtless George told me that he was going to do such a thing, I could have believed it of him. Not of you, Thomas.”

      “Janet, the home shall no longer be a barrier to us. I wish you would receive Ethel here as your guest.”

      “It is not likely that she would come. The first thing a married woman looks for is to have a home of her own.”

      Thomas smiled. “Not come, Janet? Have you yet to learn how unassuming and meek is the character of Ethel? We have spoken of this plan together, and Ethel’s only fear is, lest she should ‘be in Miss Godolphin’s way.’ Failing to carry out this project, Janet—for I see you are, as I thought you would be, prejudiced against it—I shall hire a lodging as near to the bank as may be, and there I shall take Ethel.”

      “Would it be seemly that the heir of Ashlydyat should go into lodgings on his marriage?” asked Janet, grief and sternness in her tone.

      “Things are seemly or unseemly, Janet, according to circumstances. It would be more seemly for the heir of Ashlydyat to take temporary lodgings while waiting for Ashlydyat, than to turn his sisters from their home for a month, or a few months, as the case might be. The pleasantest plan would be for me to bring Ethel here: as your guest. It is what she and I should both like. If you object to this, I shall take her elsewhere. Bessy and Cecil would be delighted with the arrangement: they are fond of Ethel.”

      “And when children begin to come, Thomas?” cried Miss Godolphin in her old-fashioned, steady, Scotch manner. She had a great deal of her mother about her.

      Thomas’s lips parted with a quaint smile. “Things will be decided, one way or the other, months before children shall have had time to arrive.”

      Janet knitted a whole row before she spoke again. “I will take a few hours to reflect upon it, Thomas,” she said then.

      “Do so,” he replied, rising and glancing at the timepiece. “Half-past seven! What time will Cecil expect me? I wish to spend half an hour with Ethel. Shall I go for Cecil before, or afterwards?”

      “Go for Cecil at once, Thomas. It will be better for her to be home early.”

      Thomas Godolphin went to the hall-door and looked out upon the night. He was considering whether he need put on an overcoat. It was a bright moonlight night, warm and genial. So he shut the door, and started. “I wish the cold would come!” he exclaimed, half aloud. He was thinking of the fever, which still clung obstinately to Prior’s Ash, showing itself fitfully and partially in fresh places about every third or fourth day.

      He took the foot-path, down Crosse Street: a lonely way, and at night especially unfrequented. In one part of it, as he ascended near Ashlydyat, the pathway was so narrow that two people could scarcely walk abreast without touching the ash-trees growing on either side and meeting overhead. A murder had been committed on this spot a few years before: a sad tale of barbarity, offered to a girl by one who professed to be her lover. She lay buried in All Souls’ churchyard; and he within the walls of the county prison where he had been executed. Of course the rumour went that her ghost “walked” there, the natural sequence to these dark tales; and, what with that, and what with the loneliness of the place, few could be found in it after dark.

      Thomas Godolphin went steadily on, his thoughts running upon the subject of his conversation with Janet. It is probable that but for the difficulty touching a residence, Ethel would have been his in the past autumn. When anything should happen to Sir George, Thomas would be in possession of Ashlydyat three months afterwards; such had been the agreement with Mr. Verrall when he took Ashlydyat. Not in his father’s lifetime would Thomas Godolphin (clinging to the fancies and traditions which had descended with the old place) consent to take up his abode as master of Ashlydyat; but no longer than was absolutely necessary would he remain out of it as soon as it was his own. George would then remove to the bank, which would still be his sister’s home, as it was now. In the event of George’s marrying, the Miss Godolphins would finally leave it: but George Godolphin did not, as far as people saw, give indications that he was likely to marry. In the precarious state of Sir George’s health—and it was pretty sure he would soon either get better or worse—these changes might take place any day: therefore it was not desirable that the Miss Godolphins should leave the bank, and that the trouble and expense of setting up and furnishing a house for them should be incurred. Of course they СКАЧАТЬ