The Shadow of Ashlydyat. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ was through the upper part of this dark path, which was called the Ash-tree Walk, that George Godolphin had taken Maria Hastings, the night they had left Lady Godolphin’s dinner-table to visit the Dark Plain. Thomas, in due course, arrived at the end of the walk, and passed through the turnstile. Lady Godolphin’s Folly lay on the right, high and white and clear in the moonbeams. Ashlydyat lay to the left, dark and grey, and almost hidden by the trees. Grey as it was, Thomas looked at it fondly: his heart yearned to it: and it was to be the future home of himself and Ethel!

      “Holloa! who’s this? Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Godolphin!”

      The speaker was Snow, the surgeon. He had come swiftly upon Thomas Godolphin, turning the corner round the ash-trees from the Dark Plain. That he had been to Ashlydyat was certain, for the road led nowhere else. Thomas did not know that illness was in the house.

      “Neither did I,” said Mr. Snow in answer to the remark, “until an hour ago, when I was sent for in haste.”

      A thought crossed Thomas Godolphin. “Not a case of fever, I hope!”

      “No. I think that’s leaving us. There has been an accident at Ashlydyat to Mrs. Verrall. At least, what might have been an accident, I should rather say,” added the surgeon, correcting himself. “The injury is so slight as not to be worth the name of one.”

      “What has happened?” asked Thomas Godolphin.

      “She managed to set her sleeve on fire: a white lace or muslin sleeve, falling below the silk sleeve of her gown. In standing near a candle, the flame caught it. But now, look at that young woman’s presence of mind! Instead of wasting moments in screams, or running through the house from top to bottom, as most people would have done, she instantly threw herself down upon the rug, and rolled herself in it. That’s the sort of woman to go through life.”

      “Is she much burnt?”

      “Pooh! Many a child gets a worse burn a dozen times in its first dozen years. The arm between the elbow and the wrist is slightly scorched. It’s nothing. They need not have sent for me. The application of a little cold water will take out all the fire. Your sister Cecilia was ten times more alarmed than Mrs. Verrall.”

      “I am truly glad it is no worse!” said Thomas Godolphin. “I feared fever might have found its way there.”

      “That is taking its departure; as I think. And, the sooner it goes, the better. It has been capricious as the smiles of a coquette. How strange it is, that not a soul, down by those Pollard pigsties, should have had it, except the Bonds!”

      “It is equally strange that, in many houses, it should have attacked only one inmate, and spared the rest. What do you think now of Sarah Anne Grame?”

      Mr. Snow shook his head, and his voice grew insensibly low. “In my opinion she is sinking fast. I found her worse this afternoon; weaker than she has been at all. Lady Sarah said, ‘If she could get her to Ventnor?’—‘If she could get her to Hastings?’ But the removal would kill her: she’d die on the road. It will be a terrible blow to Lady Sarah, if it does come: and—though it may seem harsh to say it—a retort upon her selfishness. Did you know that they used to make Ethel head nurse, while the fever was upon her?”

      “No!” exclaimed Thomas Godolphin.

      “They did, then. My lady inadvertently let it out to-day. Dear child! If she had caught it, I should never have forgiven her mother, whatever you may have done. Good night. I have a dozen visits now to pay before bedtime.”

      “Worse!” soliloquized Thomas Godolphin, as he stepped on. “Poor, peevish Sarah Anne! But—I wonder,” he hesitated as the thought struck him, “whether, if the worst should come, as Snow seems to anticipate, it would put off Ethel’s marriage? What with one delay and another–”

      Thomas Godolphin’s voice ceased, and his heart stood still. He had turned the corner, to the front of the ash-tree grove, and stretching out before him was the Dark Plain, with its weird-like bushes, so like graves, and—its Shadow, lying cold and still in the white moonlight. Yes! there surely lay the Shadow of Ashlydyat. The grey archway rose behind it; the flat plain extended out before it, and the Shadow was between them, all too distinctly visible.

      The first shock over, Thomas Godolphin’s pulses coursed on again. He had seen that Shadow before in his lifetime, but he halted to gaze at it again. It was very palpable. The bier, as it looked in the middle, a mourner at the head, a mourner at the foot, each—as a spectator could fancy—with bowed heads. In spite of the superstition touching this strange Shadow in which Thomas Godolphin had been brought up, he looked round now for some natural explanation of it. He was a man of intellect, a man of the world, a man who played his full share in the practical business of everyday life: and such men are not given to acknowledging superstitious fancies in this age of enlightenment, no matter what bent may have been given to their minds in childhood.

      Therefore Thomas Godolphin ranged his eyes round and round in the air, and could see nothing that would solve the mystery. “I wonder whether it be possible that certain states of the atmosphere should give out these shadows?” he soliloquized. “But—if so—why should it invariably appear in that one precise spot; and in no other? Could Snow have seen it, I wonder?”

      He walked on towards Ashlydyat, his head always turned, looking at the Shadow. “I am glad Janet does not see it! It would frighten her into a belief that my father’s end was near,” came his next thought.

      Mrs. Verrall, playing the invalid, lay on a sofa, her auburn hair somewhat ruffled, her pretty pink cheeks flushed, her satin slippers peeping out; altogether challenging admiration. The damaged arm, its silk sleeve pinned up, was stretched out on a cushion, a small delicate cambric handkerchief, saturated with water, resting lightly on the burn. A basin of water stood near, with a similar handkerchief lying in it, and Mrs. Verrall’s maid was at hand to change the handkerchiefs as might be required. Thomas Godolphin drew a chair near to Mrs. Verrall, and listened to the account of the accident, giving her his full sympathy, for it might have been a bad one.

      “You must possess great presence of mind,” he observed. “I think your showing it, as you have done in this instance, has won Mr. Snow’s heart.”

      Mrs. Verrall laughed. “I believe I do possess presence of mind. And so does Charlotte. Once we were out with some friends in a barouche, and the horses took fright, ran up a bank, turned the carriage over, and nearly kicked it to pieces. While all those with us were fearfully frightened, Charlotte and I remained calm and cool.”

      “It is a good thing for you,” he observed.

      “I suppose it is. Better, at any rate, than to go mad with fear, as some do. Cecil”—turning to her—“has had fright enough to last her for a twelvemonth, she says.”

      “Were you present, Cecil?” asked her brother.

      “I was present, but I did not see it,” replied Cecil. “It occurred in Mrs. Verrall’s bedroom, and I was standing at the dressing-table, with my back to her. The first thing I knew, or saw, was Mrs. Verrall on the floor with the rug rolled round her.”

      Tea was brought in, and Mrs. Verrall insisted that they should remain for it. Thomas pleaded an engagement, but she would not listen: they could not have the heart, she said, to leave her alone. So Thomas—the very essence of good feeling and politeness—waived his objection and remained. Not the bowing politeness of a petit maître, but the genuine consideration that springs from a noble and unselfish heart.

      “I am in ecstasy that Verrall was СКАЧАТЬ