Part 111 (1/2)
The distance from her own house to that of Colonel Max was about two miles. Rather a long walk for Maria at the present time, for she was not in a condition of health to endure fatigue. It was a square, moderate-sized, red-brick house, standing considerably back from the high-road; and as Maria turned into its avenue of approach, what with the walk, and what with the dread apprehension of the coming interview, the faintness at her heart had begun to show itself upon her face. The insult offered her (could it be called anything less?) by Lady Sarah Grame, had somehow seemed an earnest of what she might expect from Lord Averil. Lady Sarah had not a tenth of the grievance against the Bank that the viscount had.
No one ever approached the colonel's house without having their ears saluted with the baying and snarling of his fox-hounds, whose kennels were close by. In happier days--days so recently past, that they might almost be counted as present--when Maria had gone to that house to dinner-parties, she had drawn closer to George in the carriage, and whispered how much she should dislike it if _he_ kept a pack of fox-hounds near their dwelling-place. Never, never should she drive to that house in state again, her husband by her side. Oh! the contrast it presented--that time and this! Now she was approaching it like the criminal that the world thought her, s.h.i.+elding her face with her veil, hiding herself, so far as she might, from observation.
She reached the door, and paused ere she rang: her pulses were throbbing wildly, her heart beat as if it would burst its bounds. The nearer the interview, the more formidable did it appear, the less able herself to face it. The temptation came over her to go back. It a.s.sailed her very strongly, and she might have yielded to it, but for the thought of Thomas G.o.dolphin.
She rang at the bell; a timid ring. One of those rings that seem to announce the humble applicant--and who was the wife of George G.o.dolphin now, that she should proclaim herself with pomp and clatter? A man settling himself into his green livery coat opened the door.
”Is Lord Averil within?”
”No.”
The servant was a stranger, and did not know her. He may have thought it curious that a lady, who spoke in a low tone and scarcely raised her eyes through her veil, should come there alone to inquire after Lord Averil. He resumed, rather pertly:
”His lords.h.i.+p walked out an hour ago with the colonel. It's quite unbeknown what time they may come in.”
In her shrinking dread of the interview, it almost seemed a relief.
Strange to say, so fully absorbed had she been in the antic.i.p.ated pain, that the contingency of his being out had not crossed her mind. The man stood with the door in his hand, half open, half closed; had he invited her to walk in and sit down, she might have done so, for the sake of the rest. But he did not.
Retracing her steps down the path, she branched off into a dark walk, overshadowed by trees, just within the entrance-gate, and sat down upon a bench. Now the reaction was coming; the disappointment: all that mental agony, all that weary way of fatigue, and not to see him! It must all be gone over again on the morrow.
She threw back her veil; she pressed her throbbing forehead against the trunk of the old oak tree: and in that same moment some one entered the gate on his way to the house, saw her, and turned round to approach her.
It was Lord Averil.
Had the moment really come? Every drop of blood in her body seemed to rush to her heart, and send it on with a tumultuous bound; every sense of the mind seemed to leave her; every fear that the imagination can conjure up seemed to rise in menace. She rose to her feet and gazed at him, her sight partially leaving her, her face changing to a ghastly whiteness.
But when he hastened forward and caught her hands in the deepest respect and sympathy; when he bent over her, saying some confused words--confused to _her_ ear--of surprise at seeing her, of pity for her apparent illness; when he addressed her with every token of the old kindness, the consideration of bygone days, then the revulsion of feeling overcame her, and Maria burst into a flood of distressing tears, and sobbed pa.s.sionately.
”I am fatigued with the walk,” she said, with a lame attempt at apology, when her emotion was subsiding. ”I came over to speak to you, Lord Averil. I--I have something to ask you.”
”But you should not have walked,” he answered in a kindly tone of remonstrance. ”Why did you not drop me a note? I would have come to you.”
She felt as one about to faint. She had taken off her gloves, and her small white hands were unconsciously writhing themselves together in her lap, showing how great was her inward pain; her trembling lips, pale with agitation, refused to bring out their words connectedly.
”I want to ask you to be merciful to my husband. Not to prosecute him.”
The words were breathed in a whisper; the rus.h.i.+ng tide of shame changed her face to crimson. Lord Averil did not for the moment answer, and the delay, the fear of failure, imparted to her somewhat of courage.
”For Thomas's sake,” she said. ”I ask it for Thomas's sake.”
”My dear Mrs. G.o.dolphin,” he was beginning, but she interrupted him, her tone changing to one of desperate energy.
”Oh, be merciful, be merciful! Be merciful to my husband, Lord Averil, for his brother's sake. Nay--for George's own sake; for my sake, for my poor child's sake, Meta's. He can never come back to Prior's Ash, unless you will be merciful to him: he cannot come now, and Thomas has to go through all the worry and the misery, and it is killing him. Mr. Snow came to me this morning and said it was killing him; he said that George must return if he would save his brother's life: and I spoke to Mr.
Hurde, and he said there was nothing to prevent his returning, except the danger from Lord Averil. And then I made my mind up to come to you.”
”I shall not prosecute him, Mrs. George G.o.dolphin. My long friends.h.i.+p with his brother debars it. He may come back to-morrow, in perfect a.s.surance that he has nothing to fear from me.”
”Is it true?--I may rely upon you?” she gasped.
”Indeed you may. I have never had a thought of prosecuting. I cannot describe to you the pain that it has been to me; I mean the affair altogether, not my particular loss: but that pain would be greatly increased were I to bring myself to prosecute one bearing the name of G.o.dolphin. I am sorry for George; deeply sorry for him. Report says that he has allowed himself to fall into bad hands, and could not extricate himself.”