Somehow, Maria had not the courage to inquire more particularly as to the "comments:" it was a subject that she shrank from, though vague and uncertain at the best. Mrs. Akeman went out; and Maria, the strings of her grief loosened, sat down and cried as if her heart would break.

With quite a sick feeling of dread she dressed herself to go to the Rectory. But not until later in the day. She put it off, and put it off, with some faint wish, foolish and vain, that dusk would forestall its usual hour. The western sun, drawing towards its setting, streamed full on the street of Prior's Ash as she walked down it. Walked down it, almost as a criminal, a black veil over her face, flushed with its sensitive dread. No one but herself knew how she shrank from the eyes of her fellow-creatures.

She might have ordered the close carriage and gone down in it--for the carriages and horses were yet at her disposal. But that, to Maria, would have been worse. To go out in state in her carriage, attended by her men-servants, would have seemed more defiant of public feelings than to appear on foot. Were these feelings ultra-sensitive? absurd? Not altogether. At any rate, I am relating the simple truth--the facts as they occurred--the feelings that actuated her.

"Look at her, walking there! She's as fine as a queen!" The words, in an insolent, sneering tone, caught her ear as she pa.s.sed a group of low people gathered at the corner of a street. They would not be likely to come from any other. That they were directed to her there was no doubt; and Maria's ears tingled as she hastened on.

Was she so fine? she could not help asking herself. She had put on the plainest things she had. A black silk dress and a black mantle, a white silk bonnet and a black veil. All good things, certainly, but plain, and not new. She began to feel that reproaches were cast upon her which she did _not_ deserve: but they were not the less telling upon her heart.

Did she dread going into the Rectory? Did she dread the reproaches she might be met with there?--the coldness? the slights? If so, she did not find them. She was met by the most considerate kindness, and perhaps it wrung her heart all the more.

They had seen her coming, and Rose ran forward to meet her in the hall, and kissed her; Reginald came boisterously out with a welcome; a chart in one hand, parallel-rulers and a pair of compa.s.ses in the other: he was making a pretence of work, was p.r.i.c.king off a ship's place in the chart. The Rector and Isaac were not at home.

"Is mamma in bed?" she asked of Rose.

"Yes. But her cold is better this evening. She will be so glad to see you."

Maria went up the stairs and entered the room alone. The anxious look of trouble on Mrs. Hastings's face, its feverish hue, struck her forcibly, as she advanced with timidity, uncertain of her reception. Uncertain of the reception of a mother?? With an eagerly fond look, a rapid gesture of love, Mrs. Hastings drew Maria's face down to her for an embrace.

It unhinged Maria. She fell on her knees at the side of the bed, and gave vent to a pa.s.sionate flood of tears. "Oh mother, mother, I could not help it!" she wailed. "It has been no fault of mine."

Mrs. Hastings did not speak. She put her arm round Maria's neck, and let it rest there. But the sobs were redoubled.

"Don't, child!" she said then. "You will make yourself ill. My poor child!"

"I am ill, mamma; I think I shall never be well again," sobbed Maria, losing some of her reticence. "I feel sometimes that it would be a relief to die."

"Hush, my love! Keep despair from you, whatever you do."

"I could bear it better but for the thought of you and papa. That is killing me. Indeed, indeed I have not deserved the blame thrown upon me.

I knew nothing of what was happening."

"My dear, we have not blamed _you_."

"Oh yes, every one blames me!" wailed Maria. "And I know how sad it is for you all--to suffer by us. It breaks my heart to think of it. Mamma, do you know I dreamt last night that a shower of gold was falling down to me, faster than I could gather it in my hands. I thought I was going to pay every one, and I ran away laughing, oh so glad! and held out some to papa. 'Take them,' I said to him, 'they are slipping through my fingers.' I fell down when I was near him, and awoke. I awoke--and--then"--she could scarcely speak for sobbing--"I remembered.

Mamma, but for Meta I _should_ have been glad in that moment to die."

The emotion of both was very great, nearly overpowering Maria. Mrs.

Hastings could not say much to comfort, she was too prostrated herself.

Anxious as she had been to see Maria, for she could not bear the thought of her being left alone and unnoticed in her distress--she almost repented having sent for her. Neither was strong enough to bear this excess of agitation.

Not a word was spoken of George G.o.dolphin. Mrs. Hastings did not mention him; Maria could not. The rest of the interview was chiefly spent in silence, Maria holding her mother's hand and giving way to a rising sob now and then. Into the affairs of the Bank Mrs. Hastings felt that she could not enter. There must be a wall of silence between them on that point, as on the subject of George.

At the foot of the stairs, as she went down, she met her father. "Oh, is it you, Maria?" he said. "How are you?"

His tone was kindly. But Maria's heart was full, and she could not answer. He turned into the room by which they were standing, and she went in after him.

"When is your husband coming back? I suppose you don't know?"

"No," she answered, obliged to confess it.

"My opinion is, it would be better for him to face it, than to remain away," said the Rector. "A more honourable course, at any rate."

Still there was no reply. And Mr. Hastings, looking at his daughter's face in the twilight of the evening, saw that it was working with emotion; that she was striving, almost in vain, to repress her feelings.

"It must be very dull for you at the Bank now, Maria," he resumed in a gentle tone: "dull and unpleasant. Will you come to the Rectory for a week or two, and bring Meta?"

The tears streamed from her eyes then, unrepressed. "Thank you, papa!

thank you for all your kindness," she answered, striving not to choke.

"But I must stay at home as long as I may."

Reginald put on his cap to see her home, and they departed together, Reginald talking gaily, as if there were not such a thing as care in the world; Maria unable to answer him. The pain in her throat was worse than usual then. In turning out of the Rectory gate, whom should they come upon but old Jekyl, walking slowly along, nearly bent double with rheumatism. Reginald accosted him.

"Why, old Jekyl! it's never you! Are you in the land of the living still?"

"Ay, it is me, sir. Old bones don't get laid so easy; in spite, maybe, of their wishing it. Ma'am," added the old man, turning to Maria, "I'd like to make bold to say a word to you. That sixty pound of mine, what was put in the Bank--you mind it?"

"Yes," said Maria faintly.

"The losing of it'll be just dead ruin to me, ma'am. I lost my bees last summer, as you heard on, and that bit o' money was all, like, I had to look to. One must have a crust o' bread and a sup o' tea as long as it pleases the Almighty to keep one above ground: one can't lie down and clam. Would you be pleased just to say a word to the gentlemen, that that trifle o' money mayn't be lost to me? Mr. G.o.dolphin will listen to _you_."

Maria scarcely knew what to answer. She had not the courage to tell him the money was lost; she did not like to raise delusive hopes by saying that it might be saved.

Old Jekyl wrongly interpreted the hesitation. "It was you yourself, ma'am, as advised my putting it there; for myself, I shouldn't have had a thought on't: surely you won't object to say a word for me, that I mayn't lose it now. My two sons, David and Jonathan, come home one day when they had been working at your house, and telled me, both of 'em, that you recommended me to take my money to the Bank; it would be safe and sure. I can't afford to lose it," he added in a pitiful tone; "it's all my substance on this side the grave."

"Of course she'll speak to them, Jekyl," interposed Reginald, answering for Maria just as freely and lightly as he would have answered for himself. "I'll speak to Mr. George G.o.dolphin for you when he comes home; I don't mind; I can say anything to him. It would be too bad for you to lose it. Good evening. Don't go pitch-polling over! you haven't your sea-legs on to-night."

The feeble old man continued his way, a profusion of thanks breaking from him. They fell on Maria's heart as a knell. Old Jekyl's money had as surely gone as had the rest! And, but for her, it might never have been placed with the G.o.dolphins.

When they arrived at the Bank, Reginald gave a loud and flourishing knock, pulled the bell with a peal that alarmed the servants, and then made off with a hasty good-night, leaving Maria standing there alone, in his careless fashion. At the same moment there advanced from the opposite direction a woman carrying a brown-paper parcel.

It was Margery. Detained where she had gone to meet her sister by that sister's sudden illness, she had been unable to return until now. It had put Margery out considerably, and altogether she had come home in anything but a good humour.

"I knew there'd be no luck in the journey," she cried, in reply to Maria's salutation. "The night before I started I was in the midst of a muddy pool all night in my dream, and couldn't get out of it."

"Is your sister better?" asked Maria.

"She's better: and gone on into Wales. But she's the poorest creature I ever saw. Is all well at home, ma'am?"

"All well," replied Maria, her tone subdued, as she thought how different it was in one sense from "well."

"And how has Harriet managed with the child?" continued Margery in a tart tone, meant for the unconscious Harriet.

"Very well indeed," answered Maria. "Quite well."

The door had been opened, and they were then crossing the hall. Maria turned into the dining-room, and Margery continued her way upstairs, grumbling as she did so. To believe that Harriet, or any one else, herself excepted, could do "Quite well" by Meta, was a stretch of credulity utterly inadmissible to Margery's biased mind. In the nursery sat Harriet, a damsel in a smart cap with flying pink ribbons.

"What, is it you?" was her welcome to Margery. "We thought you had taken up your abode yonder for good."