Chapter 31
"Thomas, when do they leave Ashlydyat?"
"Who, sir? The Verralls? They have not had notice yet."
Sir George stopped. He drew up his head to its full height, and turned to his son. "Not had notice? When, then, do I go back? I won't go to Lady G.o.dolphin's Folly. I must go to Ashlydyat."
"Yes, sir," said Thomas soothingly. "I will see about it."
The knight, satisfied, resumed his walk. "Of course you will see about it. You are my son and heir, Thomas. I depend upon you."
They pursued their way for some little time in silence, and then Sir George spoke again, his tone hushed. "Thomas, I have put on mourning for her. I mourn her as much as you do. And you did not get there in time to see her alive!"
"Not in time. No," replied Thomas, looking hard into the mist overhead.
"I'd have come to the funeral, Thomas, if she had let me. But she was afraid of the fever. George got there in time for it?"
"Barely."
"When he came back to Broomhead, and heard of it, he was so cut up, poor fellow. Cut up for your sake, Thomas. He said he should be in time to follow her to the grave if he started at once, and he went off then and there. Thomas"--dropping his voice still lower--"whom shall you take to Ashlydyat now?"
"My sisters."
"Nay. But as your wife? You will be replacing Ethel sometime."
"I shall never marry now, father."
At length Broomhead was reached. Thomas held open the gate of the shrubbery to his father, and guided him through it.
"Shall we have two engines, Thomas?"
"Two engines, sir! What for?"
"They'd take us quicker, you know. This is not the station!" broke forth Sir George in a sharp tone of complaint, as they emerged beyond the shrubbery, and the house stood facing them. "Oh, Thomas! you said you were taking me to Ashlydyat! I cannot die away from it!"
Thomas G.o.dolphin stood almost confounded. His father's discourse, the greater part of it, at any rate, had been so rational that he had begun to hope he was mistaken as to his weakness of mind. "My dear father, be at rest," he said: "we will start if you like with to-morrow's dawn. But to go now to the station would not forward us: it is by this time closed for the night."
They found the house in a state of commotion. Sir George had been missed, and servants were out searching for him. Lady G.o.dolphin gazed at Thomas with all the eyes she possessed, thunderstruck at his appearance.
"What miracle brought you here?" she exclaimed, wonderingly.
"No miracle, Lady G.o.dolphin. I am thankful that I happened to come. What might have become of Sir George without me, I know not. I expect he would have remained at the stile where I found him until morning; and might have caught his death there."
"He will catch that speedily enough if he is to wander out of the house at midnight in this mad manner," peevishly rejoined my lady.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE LAST JOURNEY.
"I beg your pardon, Lady G.o.dolphin. That is not the question."
"Not the question!" reiterated Lady G.o.dolphin. "I say that it is the question. The question is, whether Sir George is better and safer here than he would be at Prior's Ash. And of course he is so."
"I think not," replied Thomas G.o.dolphin quietly. "He would be equally well at Prior's Ash: equally safe, as I believe and trust. And the anxiety to be there, which has taken hold of his mind, has grown too strong to be repressed. To detain him here, against his wish, would make him ill, Lady G.o.dolphin. Not returning home."
"Prior's Ash is an unhealthy place just now."
"Its unhealthiness has pa.s.sed away. The last to be attacked was--was Ethel. And
"Sir George is partially childish," pursued Lady G.o.dolphin. "You may see for yourself that he is so. It would be most unreasonable, it would be ridiculous to take notice of his whims. Look at his starting out of the house to-night, with nothing on, and roaming a mile or two away in the dark! Is that a proof of sanity?"
"It is a proof how fixedly his mind is bent upon returning home,"
replied Thomas G.o.dolphin. "He was endeavouring, as I have already informed you, Lady G.o.dolphin, to make his way to the station."
"I shall have him watched in future," said she.
"Lady G.o.dolphin," he resumed, speaking in the calmly quiet tone which characterized him, unmistakably firm now, in spite of its courteousness: "I am here by the desire of my father to accompany him back to Prior's Ash. I may almost say, to convey him back: for I fear he can no longer boast much power of his own, in any way. The last words I said to him, before entering, were, that he should start, if it pleased him, with to-morrow's dawn. I must keep my promise."
"Do you defy me, Thomas G.o.dolphin?"
"I have no wish to do so. I have no wish to abate a particle of the respect and consideration due to you as my father's wife. At the same time, my duty to him is paramount: I hold it more sacred, Lady G.o.dolphin, than any earthly thing. He has charged me, by my duty, to take him back to Ashlyd--to Prior's Ash: and I shall do so."
"You would take him back, I suppose, if Prior's Ash were full of snakes and scorpions?" returned my lady, somewhat losing her temper.
"It is full of neither. Nothing is there, so far as I am aware, that can harm Sir George. Can you urge a single good reason why he should not return to it, Lady G.o.dolphin!"
The delicate bloom on my lady's cheeks was surely heightened--or did Thomas G.o.dolphin fancy it? "But, what if I say he shall _not_ return?"
she asked, her voice slightly raised.
"I think you will not say it, Lady G.o.dolphin," he replied. "It is Sir George's wish to go to Prior's Ash, and it is my province to see that wish carried out--as he has requested me. Much as I desire to respect your feelings and any plans you may have formed, they cannot weigh with me in this case. There is no necessity whatever for your returning home, Lady G.o.dolphin, unless you choose to do so: but Sir George will leave for it to-morrow."
"And you boast that you do not defy me!" cried Lady G.o.dolphin, with a short laugh. "I would use force to keep him in this house, rather than he should go out of it against my will."
"Force?" repeated Thomas G.o.dolphin, looking at her for an explanation.
"What sort of force?"
"Physical force," she answered, a.s.suming a degree of fair suavity. "I would command the servants to bar his exit."
A faint smile crossed Thomas G.o.dolphin's lips. "Do not attempt that, Lady G.o.dolphin," he replied in the respectful manner of one who tenders earnest advice. "I should be sorry indeed to publicly oppose my authority to yours. You know the servants have, most of them, grown old in our service: and that may plead their excuse: but there is not one of them who would not be obedient to the lifting of my finger, in the cause of their master."
Lady G.o.dolphin was foiled. Lady G.o.dolphin had long been aware that she should be foiled, if it ever came to an encounter--strength against strength--between herself and Thomas G.o.dolphin. Easy George she could manage, the Miss G.o.dolphins she could put down, Sir George was, now, as a reed in her hands. But Thomas?--he was different. None of them had been so uniformly respectful and courteous to her as Thomas. And yet she had known that he, of all the rest, would not bend to her authority, were any cause to arise why he should not do so.
She sat biting--as far as she dared--her rose-tinted lips; she lifted one hand and toyed with her perfumed ringlets; she opened a fan which lay at her side, and gently fanned herself; she glanced at the still countenance of Thomas G.o.dolphin: and she knew that she must give up the game. To give it up with a good grace was essential to her future ruling: and she was now making up her mind to do this. It would never do, either, for her to stand in the hall on the morrow, call the servants around her, and say, "It is my pleasure that Sir George does not leave this place for Prior's Ash. Keep him in; hold him in; lock the door; use any necessary means," while Thomas G.o.dolphin was at hand, to lift--as he had phrased it--his finger, and say, "It is my pleasure that my father does go to Prior's Ash. Stand back while he pa.s.ses." Lady G.o.dolphin was no simpleton, and she could hazard a shrewd guess as to which of the two would be obeyed. So she sat, bringing her mind to make a virtue of necessity, and throw up the plea. In point of fact, she had no cause of objection to Sir George's returning to Prior's Ash, except that she did not care to return to it herself. For two reasons: one, that she liked Broomhead best: the other, that she could not yet subdue her fears of the fever. She bent her head, as if examining the chaste devices on her fan, and spoke indifferently.
"You must be aware that my wish to keep Sir George here arises solely from the state of Prior's Ash. It always has been our custom to spend Christmas there, amongst you all, and I should have had no other thought for this Christmas, but for the illness which arose. Will you guarantee that it is safe for him?"
"Nay, Lady G.o.dolphin. To 'guarantee' an a.s.surance of the sort would be impossible at the best of times. I believe that any fears you may entertain now of the fever will prove only a bugbear."