by Ellen Wood
Meta sprang from Charlotte’s arms to her mother’s, with a great cry. Maria, not so strongly-framed as Charlotte, could not hold this child of between five and six at her ease, but was fain to stagger with her to a bench. Meta lay in her lap, clinging to her and sobbing convulsively.
“My darling, what is it?” whispered Maria. “What has hurt you?”
“Oh, mamma, send them away! send them away!” cried the little imploring voice.
“Would you be so kind as send the dogs away, Mrs. Pain?” asked Maria. “I think she is frightened at them.”
“I know she is, foolish little thing!” answered Charlotte, going off with the dogs. Apparently she disposed of them somewhere, for she returned the next minute without them. Maria was in the same place, holding her child to her heart.
“Mrs. George Godolphin, don’t you think you will have to answer sometime for the manner in which you are rearing that child?” began she, gravely.
“In what way?” returned Maria.
“You are bringing her up to be as timid as yourself.”
“Am I particularly timid?”
“You! Why, you know you are. You don’t ride: you wouldn’t drive for the world; you are afraid of dogs.”
“I could manage to ride a quiet pony,” said Maria. “As to dogs, I confess that I am a little afraid of them, if they are rough.”
“If a dog only barks, you call it ‘rough,’” retorted Charlotte. “I should just put that child down again, and call the dogs round her, and let her battle it out with them. They would not hurt her; there’s no fear of that; and it would teach her to overcome fear.”
“Oh, Mrs. Pain!” Maria involuntarily strained her child closer to her, and Meta, who had heard the words, pushed her little hot face of distress nearer to its shelter. “It might throw her into such a state of terror, that she would never forget it. She would be frightened at dogs for her life. That is not the way to treat children, indeed, Mrs. Pain!”
Meta could not be coaxed down again. Maria was not strong enough to carry her to the house, so Charlotte took her up in her arms. But the child would not release her hand from her mother’s, and Maria had to walk along, holding it.
“You pretty little timid goose!” cried Charlotte, kissing her. “Whatever would you do if you were to lose your mamma?”
“It would be a calamity, would it not, Meta?” said Maria, speaking half-jokingly; and Charlotte answered in the same light spirit.
“A calamity in one sense, of course. But she might get a chance then of having a little of the rust rubbed out of her. Meta, we must have some more strawberries after this.”
But Meta could not be seduced to strawberries. Maria said farewell, and led her away, bending her steps to Ashlydyat. The child was frightened still. Janet gravely assured her that the dogs would not come to Ashlydyat, and Meta allowed herself to be taken possession of by Cecil, introducing the subject of Mrs. Bond’s beautiful parrot and its large cage as she was going away.
“We have heard about the parrot,” remarked Bessy to Maria. “Susan Satcherly hobbled up here this morning, and mentioned its arrival. Susan hopes it won’t scream all night as well as all day: she hears it next door as plainly as though the parrot were present there. A ten-pound note has come also, she says. Which I am almost sorry for,” added Bessy: “though I suppose Mrs. Bond would think me terribly ill-natured if she heard me say so. She will change that note to-day, and never rest until the last shilling of it has been spent.”
“No, she will not,” returned Maria, laughing, holding out the note in triumph. “She has given it to me to keep for her.”
“Never!” exclaimed Bessy in surprise. “You must have exercised some sleight-of-hand, Maria, to get that!”
Maria laughed. “She was in an unusually tractable humour, Bessy. The fact is, a sovereign had arrived as well as the bank-note: and that she had changed.”
Bessy nodded her head. She knew Mrs. Bond of old. “I understand,” said she. “Was she very bad, Maria?”
“No; not then. But I can’t say what she may be before the day is over. She brought a handful of silver out of her pocket.”
“Now, mind, Maria — don’t give her up that note, let her ask for it ever so,” advised Bessy. “Keep it until winter.”
“If she will allow me,” replied Maria. “But she only resigned it on condition that I would return it to her if she asked for it. I promised that I would do so.”
“I should not: promise or no promise,” returned Bessy. “Keeping it would be for her good, you know, Maria.”
Maria shook her head. She could not be strong-minded, as Bessy was, acting for people’s good against their will; and she could not go from her promise. She returned the note to her purse, knowing that Mrs. Bond would have it, if she chose to demand it.
Maria was easily persuaded to remain for the day at Ashlydyat. She sat at the window in the height of enjoyment. It was enjoyment to Maria Godolphin: sitting there in perfect stillness on a calm summer’s day. The lovely flowers of Ashlydyat’s garden, its velvet lawns, were stretched out before her: the white walls of Lady Godolphin’s Folly rose in the distance; and Maria sat in an easy-chair in luxurious idleness, her fair white hands lying in her lap. Meta was away somewhere, fascinating the household, and all was rest. Rest from exertion, rest from care. The time came when Maria looked back on that day and believed it must have been paradise.
Janet sent a note to the Bank, to desire George to come up to dinner with Thomas. When Thomas arrived, however, he was alone. George was out, therefore the note had not been given to him. They supposed he would be up in the evening, and dined without him.
But the evening passed on, and he did not come. Thomas’s private opinion was that George must have remained to search for the missing deeds. Thomas could not be easy under such a misfortune — as it might in truth be called. The sum was by far too weighty to be lost with equanimity. And that was not all: there was the unpleasant uncertainty with regard to the disappearance. Thomas mentioned the matter in confidence amongst them. At least, to Maria and Janet; the other two had gone out with Meta. Janet observed that he appeared absorbed in thought, as if uneasy at something; and he readily acknowledged that he had been rendered uneasy by a circumstance which had occurred during the day: the missing of some deeds that they had believed to be in safe custody.
“What if you cannot find them, Thomas?” asked Janet.
“Then we must make good the loss.”
“Is it a heavy amount?”
“Yes.”
Janet looked startled. Thomas’s grave manner did not tend to reassure her. She gave utterance to some half-spoken words.
“It is a heavy amount as a loss,” explained Thomas. “In fact, it is a large sum in itself. It would cost us over sixteen thousand pounds to make it good.”
Janet lifted her hands in dismay. “And all from the loss of a single packet of deeds?”
“Even so.”
“But how can they have been lost?”
“There it is,” said Thomas Godolphin. “If we could tell as much as that, it would be some satisfaction. We cannot imagine how or when they were lost. George missed them a month ago; but — —”
“A month ago! Did George miss them a month ago?”
It was Maria who interrupted, eagerness in her voice and manner. It had occurred to her that the fact might account for a certain restlessness, an anxiety in George’s manner, which she had not failed to remark of late. The next words of Thomas Godolphin served to dissipate the illusion.
“George looked for the deeds a month ago. Not finding them in the box, he concluded that I had moved them. Therefore we cannot be said to have known of the loss until to-day.”
“George ought to have asked you,” said Janet.
“Yes, he ought,” acquiesced Thomas. But it was all he said.
“It is just like careless George!” exclaimed Janet. “Should the time ever come that he is sole head of the Bank, I do not know how it
will get on! To whom did the deeds belong, Thomas?”
“To Lord Averil.”
“You are sure you had them?” asked cautious Janet.
A half smile crossed Thomas Godolphin’s lips. “Quite sure, Janet. You understand,” he added, looking at them both, “we do not care that this should be spoken of. You are safe, I know, Janet; and Maria would most likely hear it from George.”
Maria had been buried in a reverie. “I cannot conceive how it is possible for anything to have been lost from the strong-room,” she said, lifting her head. “All about us are trustworthy. And, were they not, there would be no possibility of their getting to the safes in the strong-room.”
“You are right, Maria,” said Thomas. “I have thought of it until I am bewildered.”
Maria seemed to be getting bewildered also. She was thinking of it in its every aspect and bearing. Many little past incidents, proving that her husband was ill at ease, had something on his mind, rushed into her memory. She had not thought much of them before: but they grew strangely vivid now. To miss deeds of this value would amply account for it.
“Thomas,” said she, speaking out her thoughts, “do you not think George must have feared there was something wrong, when he missed them at first? I do.”
“No. Why do you think it?”
“Because — —” Maria stopped. It suddenly occurred to her that it might not be quite right to comment upon her husband’s manner, what it had, or what it had not been; that he might not like her to do so, although it was only to his brother and sister. So she turned it off: speaking any indifferent words that came uppermost.
“It is curious, missing a packet of deeds of that value from its place, that he should not have feared it might be missing altogether.”
“The very fact of his not asking me about it, Maria, proves that no suspicion of wrong crossed his mind,” was the comment of Thomas Godolphin. “He supposed I had placed it elsewhere.”
“That’s just like George!” repeated Janet. “Taking things on trust, as he takes people! A child might deceive him.”
“I hope we shall find them yet,” said Thomas Godolphin.
“Does Lord Averil — —”
What Janet might be about to inquire was never known. The words were stopped by a strange noise, an appalling noise, apparently at the very door of the room they were in. A loud, prolonged, discordant noise, unlike anything they had ever heard. Some might have compared it to the shrieks of a strong giant in his agony; some to the hoarse screams of a bird of prey. But it was unlike either: it was unlike anything earthly.
With one bound, they flew to the hall, on to which the room opened, Maria, white with terror. The servants came rushing from their apartments, and stood in consternation.
What was the noise? What had caused it? The questions were pouring forth from all. The hall was perfectly empty, except for its startled gazers; doors and windows had been closed. Thomas walked to the entrance and looked beyond, beyond the porch, but nothing was there. The space was empty; the evening was calm and still. At a distance, borne on the evening air, could be heard the merry laughter of Meta, playing with Bessy and Cecil. Thomas came in and closed the door again.
“I cannot think what it could have been!” he observed, speaking generally.
The servants were ready with answering remarks. One had thought this; one had thought that; another something else. Maria had seized upon Janet: glad, perhaps, that it was too dark for her white face to be discerned. It was the sound which had so terrified her: no association in her mind was connected with it; and it was the sound which had terrified the servants. They had never heard a sound like unto it in all their lives.
“It must have been a night-bird, shrieking as he flew over the house,” observed Mr. Godolphin.
But, in truth, he so spoke only in the absence of any other possible assumption, and against his own belief. No bird of prey, known to ornithology, could have made that noise, even had it been within the hall to do it. A dozen birds of prey could not have made it. Thomas, like the rest, felt bewildered.
The servants began to move away. Nothing more than usual was to be seen in the darkened hall nothing to be heard. As the last one disappeared, Thomas turned to the drawing-room door, and held it open for his sister and Maria.
At that very moment when they had gone in, and Thomas was following, the noise came again. Loud, prolonged, shrill, unearthly! What was it? Were the rafters of the house loosening? the walls rending asunder? Were the skies opening for the crack of doom? They gathered in the hall again: master, ladies, servants; and stood there, motionless, appalled, bewildered, their faces whiter than before.
Its echoes died away in shrieks. Human cries this time, and not unfamiliar. One of the women-servants, excited beyond repression, had fallen into hysterics.
But whence had proceeded that noise? Where had been its centre? Without the house, or within the house? — in its walls, its passages, its hall? — where? Its sound had been everywhere. In short, what had caused it? what had it been?
They could not tell. It was a problem beyond human philosophy to solve. They could not tell then; they could not tell afterwards. It has been no ideal scene that I have described, as living witnesses could testify. Witnesses who can no more account for those unearthly sounds now, than they could account for them then.
CHAPTER XIV. ISAAC HASTINGS TURNS TO THINKING.
The revelation to Isaac Hastings, that the deeds, missing, belonged to Lord Averil, set that young gentleman thinking. Like his father, like his sister Grace, he was an exceedingly accurate observer, given to taking note of passing events. He had keen perception, a retentive memory for trifles, great powers of comparison and concentration. What with one thing and another, he had been a little puzzled lately by Mr. George Godolphin. There had been sundry odds and ends out of the common to be detected in Mr. George’s manner: not patent to the generality of people, who are for the most part unobservant, but sufficiently conspicuous to Isaac Hastings. Anxiety about letters; trifles in the everyday ordering of the Bank; one little circumstance, touching a delay in paying out some money, which Isaac, and he alone, had become accidentally cognizant of; all formed food for speculation. There had been the somewhat doubtful affair of George Godolphin’s secret journey to London, leaving false word with his wife that he was accompanying Captain St. Aubyn on the road to Portsmouth, which had travelled to the knowledge of Isaac through want of reticence in Charlotte Pain. More than all, making more impression upon Isaac, had been the strange, shrinking fear displayed by George, that Saturday when he had announced Lord Averil: a fear succeeded by a confusion of manner that proved his master must for the moment have lost his presence of mind. Isaac Hastings had announced the names of other gentlemen that day, and the announcement, equally with themselves, had been received with the most perfect equanimity. Isaac had often thought of that little episode since, and wondered; wondered what there could be in Lord Averil’s visit to scare Mr. George Godolphin. It recurred to him now with double distinctness. The few words he had overheard, between Lord Averil and Mr. Godolphin, recurred to him — the former saying that George must have known of the loss of the deeds when he had asked for them a month ago, that he judged so by his manner, which was peculiar, hesitating, uncertain, “as though he had known of the loss then, and did not like to tell of it.”
To the strange manner Isaac himself could have borne witness. Had this strangeness been caused by the knowledge of the loss of the deeds? — if so, why did not George Godolphin make a stir about them then? Only on the previous day, when Lord Averil had again made his appearance, Isaac had been further struck with George’s startled hesitation, and with his refusal to see him. He had sent out word as the excuse, that he was particularly engaged. Isaac had believed at the time that George was no more engaged than he himself was. And now, this morning, when it could not be concealed any longer, came the commotion. The deeds were gone: they had disappeared in the most unaccountable manner, no on
e knowing how or when.
What did it all mean? Isaac Hastings asked himself the question as he pursued his business in the Bank, amidst the other clerks. He could not help asking it. A mind, constituted as was that of Isaac Hastings, thoughtful, foreseeing, penetrating, cannot help entering upon these speculations, when surrounding circumstances call them forth. Could it be that George Godolphin had fallen into secret embarrassment? — that he had abstracted the deeds himself and used them? Isaac felt his cheek flush with shame at the thought; with shame that he should allow himself to think such a thing of a Godolphin: and yet, he could not help it. No. Do as he would, he could not drive the thought away: it remained to haunt him. And, the longer it remained, the more vivid it grew.
Ought he to give a hint of this to his father? He did not know. On the one hand there was sober reason, which told him George Godolphin was not likely to be guilty of such a thing on the other lay his fancy, whispering that it might be so. Things as strange had been enacted lately; as the public knew. Men, in an equally good position with George Godolphin, were proved to have been living upon fraud for years. Isaac was fond of newspapers, and knew all they could tell him. What if anything came wrong to this Bank? Why then, Mr. Hastings would be a ruined man. It was not only the loss of his own life’s savings, that were in the hands of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin, but there was the larger sum he had placed there as trustee to the little Chisholms.
Isaac Hastings lingered in the Bank till the last that evening. All had gone, except Mr. Hurde. The latter was preparing to leave, when Isaac went up to him, leaning his arms upon the desk.
