“what ever is the matter?”
the interruption came from lady godolphin. charlotte pain had perceived her approach, but had ungraciously refrained from intimating it to her companions. my lady, a coquettish white bonnet shading her delicate face, and her little person enveloped in a purple velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, was on her way to pay a visit to her ex-maid, selina. she surveyed the group with intense astonishment. maria hastings, white, sobbing, clinging to george godolphin in unmistakable terror; mr. george soothing her in rather a marked manner; and charlotte pain, erect, haughty, her arms folded, her head drawn up, giving no assistance, her countenance about as pleasant as a demon’s my lady had once the pleasure of seeing at the play. she called out the above words before she was well up with them.
george godolphin did not release maria; he simply lifted his head. “she has been very much terrified, lady godolphin; but no harm is[61] done. a reptile of the snake species fastened itself on her wrist. i have flung it off.”
he glanced towards the spot where stood lady godolphin, as much as to imply that he had flung the offender there. my lady shrieked, caught up her petticoats, we won’t say how high, and leaped away nimbly.
“i never heard of such a thing!” she exclaimed. “a snake! what should bring snakes about, here?”
“say a serpent!” broke from the pale lips of charlotte pain.
lady godolphin did not detect the irony, and felt really alarmed. maria, growing calmer, and perhaps feeling half ashamed of the emotion which fear had caused her to display, drew away from george godolphin. he would not suffer that, and made her take his arm. “i am sorry to have alarmed you all so much,” she said. “indeed, i could not help it, lady godolphin.”
“a serpent in the grass!” repeated her ladyship, unable to get over the surprise. “how did it come to you, maria? were you lying down?”
“i was sitting on the camp-stool, there; busy with my drawing,” she answered. “my left hand was hanging down, touching, i believe, the grass. i began to feel something cold at my wrist, but at first did not notice it. then i lifted it and saw that dreadful thing wound round it. i could not shake it off. oh, lady godolphin! i felt—i hardly know how i felt—almost as if i should have died, had there been no one near to run to.”
lady godolphin, her skirts still lifted, the tips of her toes touching the path gingerly, to which they had now hastened, and her eyes alert, lest the serpent should come trailing forth from any unexpected direction, remarked that it was a mercy maria had escaped with only fright. “you seem to experience enough of that,” she said. “don’t faint, child.”
maria’s lips parted with a sickly smile, which she meant should be a brave one. she was both timid and excitable; and, if terror did attack her, she felt it in no common degree. what would have been but a passing fear to another, forgotten almost as soon as felt, was to her agony. remarkably susceptible, was she, to the extreme of pleasure and the extreme of pain. “there is no fear of my fainting,” she answered to lady godolphin. “i never fainted in my life.”
“i am on my road to see an old servant who lives in that house,” said lady godolphin, pointing to the tenement, little thinking how far it had formed their theme of discourse. “you shall come with me and rest, and have some water.”
“yes, that is the best thing to be done,” said george godolphin. “i’ll take you there, maria, and then i’ll have a hunt after the beast. i ought to have killed him at the time.”
lady godolphin walked on, charlotte pain at her side. charlotte’s lip was curling.
the house door, to which they were bound, stood open. across its lower portion, as if to prevent the exit of children, was a board, formerly placed there for that express purpose. the children were grown now and scattered, but the board remained; the inmates stepping over it at their will. sandy bray, who must have skulked back to his home[62] by some unseen circuit, made a rush to the board at sight of lady godolphin, and pulled it out of its grooves, leaving the entrance clear. but for his intense idleness, he, knowing she was coming, would have removed it earlier.
they entered upon a large room, half sitting-room, half kitchen, its boarded floor very clean. the old welshwoman, a cleanly, well-mannered, honest-faced old woman, was busy knitting then, and came forward, curtseying: no vestige of pipe to be seen or smelt. “selina was in bed,” bray said, standing humbly before lady godolphin. “selina had heard bad news of one of the brats, and had worried herself sick over it, as my lady knew it was in the stupid nature of selina to do. would my lady be pleased to step up to see her?”
yes; my lady would be pleased to do so by-and-by. but at present she directed a glass of water to be brought to miss hastings. bray brought the water in a cracked yellow cup.
“eh, but there is some of them things about here,” he said, when the cause of alarm was mentioned. “i think there must be a nest of ’em. they are harmless, so far as i know.”
“why don’t you find the nest?” asked mr. george godolphin.
“and what good, if i did find ’em, sir?” said he.
“kill the lot,” responded george.
he strode out of the house, bray following in his wake, to look for the reptile which had caused the alarm. bray was sure nothing would come of it: the thing had had time to get clear away.
in point of fact, nothing did come of it. george godolphin could not decide upon the precise spot where they had stood when he threw away the reptile; and, to beat over the whole field, which was extensive, would have been endless work. he examined carefully the spot where maria had sat, both he and bray, but could see no trace of anything alarming. gathering up her treasures, including the camp-stool, he set off with them. bray made a feeble show of offering to bear the stool. “no,” said george, “i’ll carry it myself: it would be too much trouble for you.”
charlotte pain stood at the door, watching as they approached, her rich cheek glowing, her eye flashing. never had she looked more beautiful, and she bent her sweetest smile upon mr. george, who had the camp-stool swinging on his back. lady godolphin had gone up to the invalid. maria, quite herself again, came forward.
“no luck,” said george. “i meant to have secured the fellow and put him under a glass case as a memento: but he has been too cunning. here’s your sketch, maria; undamaged. and here are the other rattletraps.”
she bent over the drawing quite fondly. “i am glad i had finished it,” she said. “i can do the filling-in later. i should not have had courage to sit in that place again.”
“well, old lady,” cried george in his free-and-easy manner, as he stood by the welshwoman, and looked down at her nimble fingers, “so you have come all the way from wales on foot, i hear! you put some of us to shame.”
she looked up and smiled pleasantly. she understood english better than she could speak it.
[63]“not on foot all the way,” she managed to explain. “on foot to the great steamer, and then on foot again after the steamer landed her in scotland. not less than a hundred miles of land, taking both ways together.”
“oh, i see!” said george, perceiving that margery had taken up a wrong impression. “but you must have been a good time doing that?”
“she had the time before her,” she answered, more by signs than words, “and her legs were used to the roads. in her husband’s lifetime she had oftentimes accompanied him on foot to different parts of england, when he went there with his droves of cattle. it was in those journeys that she learnt to talk english.”
george laughed at her idea of talking english. “did you learn the use of the pipe also in the journeys, old lady?”
she certainly had; for she nodded fifty times in answer, and looked delighted at his divination. “but she was obliged to put up with cheap tobacco now,” she said: “and had a trouble to get that!”
george pulled out a supply of turkey from some hidden receptacle of his coat. “did she like that sort?”
she looked at it with the eye of a connoisseur, touched it, smelt it, and finally tasted it. “ah, yes! that was good; very good; too good for her.”
“not a bit of it,” said george. “it’s yours, old lady. there! it will keep your pipe going, on the road home.”
when fully convinced that he meant it in earnest, she seized his hand, shook it heartily, and plunged into a welsh oration. it was cut short in the midst. she caught sight of bray, coming in at the house door, and smuggled the present out of sight amidst her petticoats. had mr. sandy seen it, she might have derived little benefit from it herself.
time lagged, while they waited for lady godolphin. the conversation fell upon bray’s trade—as the man was wont to call it: though who or what led to the topic none of them could remember. he recounted two or three interesting incidents; one, of a gentleman marrying a young wife and being shot dead the next day by her friends. she was an heiress, and they had run away from ireland. but that occurred years and years ago, he added. would the ladies like to see the room?
he opened a door at the back of the kitchen, traversed a passage, and entered a small place, which could only be called a room by courtesy. they followed, wonderingly. the walls were whitewashed, the floor was of brick, and the small skylight, by which it was lighted, was of thick coarse glass, embellished with green nobs. what with the lowering sky, and this lowering window, the room wore an appearance of the gloomiest twilight. no furniture was in it, except a table (or something that served for one) covered with a green baize cloth, on which lay a book. the contrast from the kitchen, bright with its fire, with the appliances of household life, to this strange comfortless place made them shiver. “a fit place for the noose to be tied in!” cried irreverent george, surveying it critically.
bray took the words literally. “yes,” said he. “it’s kept for that[64] purpose alone. it is a bit out of the common, and that pleases the women. if i said the words in my kitchen, it might not be so satisfying to them, ye see. it does not take two minutes to do,” he added, taking his stand behind the table and opening the book. “i wish i had as many pieces of gold as i have done it, here, in my time.”
charlotte pain took up the words defiantly. “it is impossible that such a marriage can stand. it is not a marriage.”
“’deed, but it is, young lady.”
“it cannot be legal,” she haughtily rejoined. “if it stands good for this loose-lawed country, it cannot do so for others.”
“ay, how about that?” interrupted george, still in his light tone of ridicule. “would it hold good in england?”
minister bray craned his long neck towards them, over the table, where they stood in a group. he took the hand of george godolphin, and that of charlotte pain, and put them to together. “ye have but to say, ‘i take you, young lady, to be my lawful wife;’ and, ‘i take you, sir, to be my husband,’ in your right names. i’d then pronounce ye man and wife, and say the blessing on it; and the deed would be done, and hold good all over the world.”
did mr. sandy bray anticipate that he might thus extemporise an impromptu ceremony, which should bring some grist to his empty mill? not improbably: for he did not release their hands, but kept them joined together, looking at both in silence.
george godolphin was the first to draw his hand away. charlotte had only stared with wondering eyes, and she now burst into a laugh of ridicule. “thank you for your information,” said mr. george. “there’s no knowing, bray, but i may call your services into requisition some time.”
“where are you?” came the soft voice of lady godolphin down the passage. “we must all hurry home: it is going to rain. charlotte, are you there? where have you all gone to? charlotte, i say?”
charlotte hastened out. lady godolphin took her arm at once, and walked with a quick step through the kitchen into the open air, nodding adieu to the old welshwoman. my lady herself, her ermine, her velvets, possibly her delicately-bloomed complexion, all shrank from the violence of a storm. storms, neither of life nor of weather, had ever come too near lady godolphin. she glanced upward at the threatening and angry sky, and urged charlotte on.
“can you walk fast? so lovely a morning as it was!”
“here comes one of the servants,” exclaimed charlotte. “with umbrellas, no doubt. how he runs!”
my lady lifted her eyes. advancing towards them with fleet foot, as if he were running for a wager, came a man in the godolphin livery. if umbrellas had been the object of his coming, he must have dropped them on his way, for his arms swung beside him, and his hands were empty.
“my lady,” cried the man, almost as much out of breath as lady godolphin: “sir george is taken ill.”
my lady stopped then. “ill!” she repeated. “ill in what way?”
“margery has just found him lying on the floor of his room, my lady.[65] we have got him on to the bed, but he appears to be quite insensible. andrew has gone to the doctor.”
“hasten to the house there, and acquaint mr. george godolphin,” said my lady, pointing to bray’s.
but charlotte had already gone on the errand. she left lady godolphin’s arm and started back with all speed, calling out that she would inform mr. george godolphin. my lady, on her part, had sped on in the direction of broomhead, with a fleeter foot than before.
leaving the man standing where he was. “which of the two am i to follow, i wonder?” he soliloquized. “i suppose i had better keep up with my lady.”
when charlotte pain had left mr. sandy bray’s match-making room, at my lady’s call, george godolphin turned with a rapid, impulsive motion to maria hastings, caught her hand, and drew her beside him, as he stood before bray. “maria, she will fetter me in spite of myself!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “let me put it out of her power.”
maria looked at him inquiringly. well she might!
“be mine now; here,” he rapidly continued, bending his face so that she alone might hear. “i swear that i never will presume upon the act, until it can be more legally solemnized. but it will bind us to each other beyond the power of man or woman to set aside.”
maria turned red, pale, any colour that you will, and quietly drew her hand from that of mr. george godolphin. “i do not quite know whether you are in earnest or in jest, george. you will allow me to infer the latter.”
quiet as were the words, calm as was the manner, there was that about her which unmistakably showed mr. george godolphin that he might not venture further to forget himself; if, indeed, he had not been in jest. maria, a true gentlewoman at heart, professed to assume that he had been.
“i beg your pardon,” he murmured. “nay, let me make my peace, maria.” and he took her hand again, and held it in his. minister bray leaned towards them with an earnest face. resigning the hope of doing any little stroke of business on his own account, he sought to obtain some information on a different subject.
“sir, would ye be pleased to tell me a trifle about your criminal laws, over the border? one of my ne’er-do-weels has been getting into trouble there, and they may make him smart for it.”
george godolphin knew that he alluded to the ill-starred nick. “what are the circumstances?” he asked. “i will tell you what i can.”
sandy entered upon the story. they stood before him, absorbed in it, for maria also listened with interest, when an exclamation caused them to turn. maria drew her hand from george godolphin’s with a quick gesture. there stood charlotte pain.
stood with a white face, and a flashing, haughty eye. “we are coming instantly,” said george. “we shall catch you up.” for he thought she had reappeared to remind them.
“it is well,” she answered. “and it may be as well to haste, mr. george godolphin, if you would see your father alive.”
[66]“what?” he answered. but charlotte had turned again and was gone like the wind. with all his speed, he could not catch her up until they had left the house some distance behind them.
