"I dare say they might, where there's time and convenience," wrathfully returned Margery, who relished Mrs. Pain's interference as little as she liked her presence. "The kitchen we are to have is about as big as a rat-hole, and my hands are full enough this evening without dancing out to buy meats and dainties."

"Of course you will light a fire here?" said Charlotte, turning to the grate. "I see it is laid."

"It's not cold," grunted Margery.

"But a fire will be a pleasant welcome. I'll do it myself."

She took up a box of matches which stood on the mantel-piece, and set light to the wood under the coal. Margery took no notice one way or the other. The fire in a fair way of burning, Charlotte hastened from the house, and Margery breathed freely again.

Not for very long. A little time, and Charlotte was back again, accompanied by a boy, bearing sundry parcels. There was a renowned comestible shop in Prior's Ash, and Charlotte had been ransacking it.

She had also been home for a small parcel on her own account; but that did not contain eatables.

Taking off her cloak and bonnet, she made herself at home. Critically surveying the bedrooms; visiting the kitchen to see that the kettle boiled; lighting the lamp on the tea-table, for it was dark then; demanding an unlimited supply of plates, and driving Margery nearly wild with her audacity. But Charlotte was doing it all in good feeling; in her desire to render this new asylum bright-looking at the moment of their taking possession of it; to cheat the first entrance of some of its bitterness for Maria. Whatever may have been Mrs. Charlotte Pain's faults--and Margery, for one, gave her credit for plenty--she was capable of generous impulses. It is probable that in the days gone by, a feeling of jealousy, of spite, had rankled in her heart against George G.o.dolphin's wife: but that had worn itself out; had been finally lost in the sorrow felt for Maria since misfortune had fallen. When the fly drove up to the door, and George brought in his wife and Meta, the bright room, the well-laden tea-table greeted their surprised eyes, and Charlotte was advancing with open hands.

"I thought you'd like to see some one here to get things comfortable for you, and I knew that cross-grained Margery would have enough to do between the boxes and her temper," she cried, taking Maria's hands. "How are you, Mr. George?"

George found his tongue. "This is kind of you, Mrs. Pain."

Maria felt that it _was_ kind: and in her flow of grat.i.tude, as her hand lay in Charlotte's warm grasp, she almost forgot that cruel calumny. Not quite: it could not be quite forgotten, even momentarily, until earth and its pa.s.sions should have pa.s.sed away.

"And mademoiselle?" continued Charlotte. Mademoiselle, little gourmande that she was, was raised on her toes, surveying the table with curious eyes. Charlotte lifted her in her arms, and held up to her view a gla.s.s jar, something within it the colour of pale amber. "This is for good children, Meta."

"That's me," responded Meta, smacking her lips. "What is it?"

"It's--let me read the label--it's pine-apple jelly. And that's boned fowl; and that's galantine de veau; and that's pate de lapereaux aux truffes--if you understand what it all means, pet.i.te marmotte.

And--there--you can look at everything and find out for yourself,"

concluded Charlotte. "I am going to show mamma her bedroom."

It opened from the sitting-room: an excellent arrangement, as Charlotte observed, in case of illness. Maria cast her eyes round it, and saw a sufficiently comfortable chamber. It was not their old luxurious chamber at the Bank; but luxuries and they must part company now.

Charlotte reigned at the head of the table that night, triumphantly gay.

Margery waited with a stiffened neck and pursed-up lips. Nothing more: there were no other signs of rebellion. Margery had had her say out with that one memorable communication, and from thenceforth her lips were closed for ever. Did the woman repent of having spoken?--did she now think it better to have let doubt be doubt? It is hard to say. She had made no further objection to Mrs. Pain in words: she intended to make none. If that lady filled Miss Meta to illness to-night with pine-apple jelly and boned fowl, and the other things with unp.r.o.nounceable names, which Margery regarded as rank poison, when regaling Miss Meta, _she_ should not interfere. The sin might lie on her master and mistress's head.

It was close upon ten when Charlotte rose to depart, which she persisted in doing alone, in spite of George's remonstrance. Charlotte had no fear of being in the streets alone: she would as soon go through them by night as by day.

As a proof of this, she did not proceed directly homewards, but turned up a road that led to the railway station. She had no objection to a stroll that moonlight night, and she had a fancy for seeing what pa.s.sengers the ten-o'clock train brought, which was just in.

It brought none. None that Charlotte could see: and she was preparing to turn back on the dull road, when a solitary figure came looming on her sight in the distance. He was better than no one, regarding him from Charlotte's sociable point of view: but he appeared to be advanced in years. She could see so much before he came up.

Charlotte strolled on, gratifying her curiosity by a good stare. A tall, portly man, with a fresh colour and snow-white hair. She was pa.s.sing him, when he lifted his face, which had been bent, and turned it towards her. The recognition was mutual, and she darted up to him, and gave his hand a hearty shake. It was Mr. Crosse.

"Good gracious me! We thought you never meant to come back again!"

"And I would rather not have come back, Mrs. Pain, than come to hear what I am obliged to hear. I went streaming off from Pau, where I was staying, a confounded, senseless tour into Spain, leaving no orders for letters to be sent to me; and so I heard nothing. What _has_ brought about this awful calamity?"

"What calamity?" asked Charlotte--knowing perfectly well all the while.

"What calamity!" repeated Mr. Crosse, who was rapid in speech and hot in temper. "The failure of the Bank--the G.o.dolphins' ruin. What else?"

"Oh, that!" slightingly returned Charlotte. "That's stale news now.

Folks are forgetting it. Queen Anne's dead."

"What brought it about?" reiterated Mr. Crosse, neither words nor tone pleasing him.

"What does bring such things about?" rejoined Charlotte. "Want of money, I suppose. Or bad management."

"But there was no want of money; there was no bad management in the G.o.dolphins' house," raved Mr. Crosse, becoming excited. "I wish you'd not play upon my feelings, Mrs. Pain."

"Who is playing upon them?" cried Charlotte. "If it was not want of money, if it was not bad management, I don't know what else it was."

"I was told in London, as I came through it, that George G.o.dolphin had been playing up old Rosemary with everything, and that Verrall has helped him," continued Mr. Crosse.

"Folks will talk," said bold Charlotte. "I was told--it was the current report in Prior's Ash--that the stoppage had occurred through Mr. Crosse withdrawing his money from the concern."

"What an unfounded a.s.sertion," exclaimed that gentleman in choler.

"Prior's Ash ought to have known better."

"So ought those who tell you rubbish about George G.o.dolphin and Verrall," coolly affirmed Charlotte.

"Where's Thomas G.o.dolphin?"

"At Ashlydyat. He's in luck. My Lord Averil has bought it all in as it stands, and Mr. G.o.dolphin remains in it."

"He is ill, I hear?"

"Pretty near dead, _I_ hear," retorted Charlotte. "My lord is to marry Miss Cecilia."

"And where's that wicked George?"

"If you call names, I won't answer you another word, Mr. Crosse."

"I suppose _you_ don't like to hear it," he returned in so pointed a manner that Charlotte might have felt it as a lance-shaft. "Well, where is he?"

"Just gone into lodgings with his wife and Margery and Meta. I have been taking tea with them. They left the Bank to-day."

Mr. Crosse stood, nodding his head in the moonlight, and communing aloud with himself. "And so--and so--it is all a smash together! It _is_ as bad as was said."

"It couldn't be worse," cried Charlotte. "Prior's Ash won't hold up its head for many a day. It's no longer worth living in. I leave it for good to-morrow."

"Poor Sir George! It's a good thing he was in his grave. Lord Averil could have prosecuted George, I hear."

"Were I to hear to-morrow that I could be prosecuted for standing here and talking to you to-night, it wouldn't surprise me," was the answer.

"What on earth did he do with the money? What went with it?"

"Report runs that he founded a cl.u.s.ter of almhouses with it," said Charlotte demurely. "Ten old women, who were to be found in coals and red cloaks, and half-a-crown a week."

The words angered him beyond everything. Nothing could have been more serious than his mood; nothing could savour of levity, of mockery, more than hers. "Report runs that he has been giving fabulous prices for horses to make presents of," angrily retorted Mr. Crosse, in a tone of pointed significance.