Part 124 (1/2)

There was considerable acidity, not to say sarcasm, in the remark; perhaps not altogether suited to the scene and interview. Good Thomas G.o.dolphin would not see it or appear to notice it. He took Margery's hands in his.

”I never thought once that I should die leaving you in debt, Margery,”

he said, his earnest tone bearing its own emotion. ”It was always my intention to bequeath you an annuity that would have kept you from want in your old age. But it has been decreed otherwise; and it is of no use to speak of what might have been. Miss Janet will refund to you by degrees what you have lost in the Bank; and so long as you live you will be welcome to a home with her. She has not much, but----”

”Now never fash yourself about me, Mr. Thomas,” interrupted Margery. ”I shall do well, I dare say; I'm young enough yet for work, I hope; I shan't starve. Ah, this world's nothing but a pack o' troubles,” she added, with a loud sigh. ”It has brought its share to you, sir.”

”I am on the threshold of a better, Margery,” was his quiet answer; ”one where troubles cannot enter.”

Margery sat for some time on the bench, talking to him. At length she rose to depart, declining the invitation to enter the house or to see the ladies, and Thomas said to her his last farewell.

”My late missis, I remember, looked once or twice during her illness as grey as he does,” she cogitated within herself as she went along. ”But it strikes me that with him it's death. I've a great mind to ask old Snow what he thinks. If it is so, Mr. George ought to be telegraphed for; they _are_ brothers, after all.”

Margery's way led her past the turning to the railway station. A train was just in. She cast an eye on the pa.s.sengers coming from it, and in one of them she saw her master, Mr. George G.o.dolphin.

Margery halted and rubbed her eyes, and almost wondered whether it was a vision. Her mind had been busy with the question, ought he, or ought he not to be telegraphed for? and there he was, before her. Gay, handsome George! with his ever-distinguished _entourage_--I don't know a better word for it in English: his bearing, his attire, his person so essentially the gentleman; his pleasant face and his winning smile.

That smile was directed to Margery as he came up. He bore in his hand a small wicker-work basket, covered with delicate tissue paper. But for the bent of Margery's thoughts at the time, she would not have been particularly surprised at the sight, for Mr. George's visits to Prior's Ash were generally impromptu ones, paid without warning. She met him rather eagerly: speaking of the impulse that had been in her mind--to send a message for him, on account of the state of his brother.

”Is he worse?” asked George eagerly.

”If ever I saw death written in a face, it's written in his, sir,”

returned Margery.

George considered a moment. ”I think I will go up to Ashlydyat without loss of time, then,” he said, turning back. But he stopped to give the basket into Margery's hands.

”It is for your mistress, Margery. How is she?”

”_She's_ nothing to boast of,” replied Margery, in tones and with a stress that might have awakened George's suspicions, had any fears with reference to his wife's state yet penetrated his mind. But they had not.

”I wish she could get a little of life into her, and then health might be the next thing to come,” concluded Margery.

”Tell her I shall soon be home.” And George G.o.dolphin proceeded to Ashlydyat.

It may be that he had not the faculty for distinguis.h.i.+ng the different indications that a countenance gives forth, or it may be that to find his brother sitting in the porch disarmed his doubts, but certainly George saw no reason to endorse the fears expressed by Margery. She had entered into no details, and George had pictured Thomas as in bed. To see him therefore sitting out of doors, quietly reading, certainly lulled all George's present fears.

Not that the ravages in the worn form, the grey look in the pale face, did not strike him as that face was lifted to his; struck him almost with awe. For a few minutes their hands were locked together in silence.

Generous Thomas G.o.dolphin! Never since the proceedings had terminated, the daily details were over, had he breathed a word of the bankruptcy and its unhappiness to George.

”George, I am glad to see you. I have been wis.h.i.+ng for you all day. I think you must have been sent here purposely.”

”Margery sent me. I met her as I was coming from the train.”

It was not to _Margery_ that Thomas G.o.dolphin had alluded--but he let it pa.s.s. ”Sent purposely,” he repeated aloud. ”George, I think the end is very near.”

”But you are surely better?” returned George, speaking in impulse.

”Unless you were better, would you be sitting here?”

”Do you remember, George, my mother sat here in the afternoon of the day she died? A feeling came over me to-day that I should enjoy a breath of the open air; but it was not until after they had brought my chair out and I was installed in it, that I thought of my mother. It struck me as being a curious coincidence; almost an omen. Margery recollected the circ.u.mstance, and spoke of it.”

The words imparted a strange sensation to George, a s.h.i.+vering dread.