Henry Wood - The Shadow of Ashlydyat

“Since when?” she murmured.

“Since many days, off and on; but worse since we left Broomhead yesterday morning. He has been sinking hour by hour. Miss Janet, it’s death.”

They got him to the Folly. And, in half an hour, the whole of his family were gathered round his death-bed. His partner, Mr. Crosse; the surgeon; and the Rector of All Souls’ were also there.

He was rambling for the most part in a disconnected manner: but he recognized them all individually, and occasionally gave utterance to rational remarks, as he might have done had he been in full possession of his senses. He fancied himself at Ashlydyat.

“I could not have died away from it, you know, Crosse,” he suddenly cried to that gentleman. “Thomas was for bringing me back to the Folly, but I told him I must go to Ashlydyat. If I did let it to strangers, they could not keep me out of it, when I wanted to go there to die. A Godolphin must not die away from Ashlydyat. Where’s Cecil?” he added, after a pause.

Poor Cecil, the tears streaming down her cheeks, was close to him; in view then. “I am here, papa.”

The knight laid his hand upon her arm—or rather, essayed to do so, but it fell again. His thoughts seemed to pass to another subject.

“Crosse, I have been telling Thomas that I should not allow more than three per cent. on those deposits. Have you seen Mainwaring lately?”

Mr. Snow stepped forward and administered something in a wine-glass. There appeared to be a difficulty in swallowing, and only part of it was taken. “He grows more restless,” said the surgeon in an undertone.

Sir George’s eyes, as he was slightly raised to take the medicine, had fallen upon some object at the other end of the room, and continued to be strained on it. “Who has changed the position of the cabinet?” he exclaimed, in a stronger tone than he had yet spoken.

It caused them all to turn and look at the spot. A fine old ebony cabinet, inlaid with silver, stood opposite the bed: had stood there ever since they removed to Lady Godolphin’s Folly; transplanted thither from Ashlydyat. In the latter house, it had stood on the right of Sir George’s bed: and his memory had evidently gone back to that. There could not be a better proof that he was fancying himself at Ashlydyat, lying in his own chamber.

“Janet! why have you placed the cabinet there?”

Janet Godolphin bent her head soothingly over him. “My dear father, it shall be moved, if you wish it.”

The knight looked at her, inquiringly for a moment, perhaps not recognizing her. Then he feebly essayed to look beyond her, as if her head interposed between his own view and something behind. “Hush, my dear, I am speaking to your mother. I want to know why she changed the place of the cabinet.”

“We thought you’d like it there, Sir George; that you could see it better there,” interposed Margery, who knew better than most of them how to deal with the sick. “I’ll have it put back before to-morrow morning.”

This satisfied him, and he lay still for a few minutes. They thought, he would sleep. Presently his eyes opened again, and they rested on George.

“George, where’s Charlotte?”

“Who, sir?” demanded George, somewhat taken aback at the question. “Do you mean Charlotte Pain? She is at—she is not here.”

“Are you married yet?”

“Oh no,” said George hastily, while several pairs of wondering eyes were directed towards him, and those of the Reverend Mr. Hastings were of the number. “Time enough for that, father.”

“George!” next came the words, in a hollow whisper this time, “don’t let her die, as Ethel did.”

“Not if I can help it,” replied George, speaking without any serious meaning, except that of humouring his father.

“And don’t let Verrall go off the bargain with the money. He is keen that way; but he has no right to touch Charlotte’s. If he does—Bessy, is Jekyl dead?”

“Oh no, papa,” said Bessy, suppressing her tears as she caressed her father’s hand: it was in stooping to do this, that the knight had observed her. “Jekyl is well and hearty yet, and he asked after you to-day. He heard you were coming home.”

“Ay! All well and hearty, but me. But it is the will of God to take me, and He knows what’s best. Where’s Thomas?”

“I am here, father,” replied Thomas Godolphin, leaning, forward so that his father could see him.

Sir George tried to put up his hand with a beckoning gesture. Thomas understood it: he bent his face close to that pale one, and clasped the nearly inanimate hand in his, listening reverently to the whisper that was breathed so solemnly.

“Thomas, I charge you, never quit Ashlydyat.”

“I will not,” replied Thomas Godolphin.

“If you bring one home to it, and she would urge you to quit it, urge you until you have no will of your own left, do not yield to it. Do not listen to her. Break with her, let her go forth alone, rather than quit Ashlydyat.”

“Father, I will never, of my own free will, leave Ashlydyat. I promise you that, so far as I can hold control over human events, I will live and die in it.”

Certainly Sir George understood the promise and its meaning. There could be no mistaking that he did so, by the smile of content which from that moment overspread his countenance, lighting up with satisfaction even his dying eye. He lay for a considerable time still, and then suddenly called for Margery.

“You’ll tell your mistress that we can’t root up those bushes,” he said, as she approached. “It’s of no use trying. As fast as they are up from one place they grow in another. They’ll not hurt. Tell her I say so.”

“I’d get some quicklime, Sir George, and see what that would do,” was Margery’s response, and the words brought up a smile from one or two of her listeners, solemn moment though it was. Margery’s maxim was, never to contradict the dying, but to humour their hallucinations. “Obstinate things, those gorses!” she continued. “But, never you trouble about my mistress, sir: she don’t mind them.”

The children, standing round his bed, knew quite well that he was alluding to their mother, his first wife. Indeed, Lady Godolphin appeared to have passed entirely from his mind.

Again he lapsed into silence, and remained to all appearance in a stupor, his eyes closed, his breathing ominously slow. Mr. Crosse took his departure, but the Rector and surgeon stayed on yet. The latter saw that the final moment was at hand, and he whispered to Miss Godolphin that she and her sisters might be better from the room. “At any rate,” he added, for he saw the dissenting, displeased look which overspread her face, “it might be as well to spare the sight to Cecil.”

“No,” briefly responded Miss Godolphin. “Our place is here.” And they watched on.

With an impulse of strength surprising to see, Sir George suddenly rose up in bed, his eyes fixed with a yearning gaze at the opposite end of the room. Not at the cabinet this time, but at some spot, far, far up, beyond the ceiling, as it appeared. His voice, startling in its clearness, rang through the air, and his arms were outstretched as if he were about to fly.

“Janet!—Janet!—Janet! Oh, my dear Janet, I am coming!”

He fell back and died. Did anything really appear to him, not visible to the mortal eyes around? Were his senses, in that moment of the soul’s departure, opened to a glimpse of the world he was about to enter? It cannot be known. Had it been fiction it would not have been written here.

A little later, the bell of All Souls’ Church, booming out over the town on the night air, told that Sir George Godolphin had passed away.

It was somewhat remarkable that another funeral, at which Thomas Godolphin was again chief mourner, should follow so closely upon Ethel’s. A different sort of ceremony, this: a rare pageant. A pageant which was made up of plumes and trappings and decorated horses, and carriages and mutes and batons, and a line of attendants, and all the other insignia of the illustrious dead. Ethel could be interred simply and quietly, but Sir George must be attended to the grave as the Godolphin of Ashlydyat. I don’t suppose poor Sir George rested any the better for it.