"Then, Margery, she has gone up into the turret. She never came to us."

Up to the turret hastened Janet; up to the turret followed Margery.

Bessy and Maria traversed the pa.s.sage leading to the turret-stairs, and stood there, looking upwards. Maria, had she been alone, could not have told which of the pa.s.sages _would_ lead her to the turret-stairs; and she could not understand why so much commotion need be made, although Meta had run up there. Strange as it may seem, Maria G.o.dolphin, though so many years George's wife, and the presumptive mistress of Ashlydyat, had never pa.s.sed beyond that separating door. Miss G.o.dolphin had never offered to take her to the unused rooms and the turret; and Maria was of too sensitively refined a nature to ask it of her own accord.

Janet appeared, leading the rebel; Margery, behind, was scolding volubly. "Now," said Janet, when they reached the foot, "tell me, Meta, how it was that you could behave so disobediently, and go where you had been expressly told not to go?"

Meta shook back her golden curls with a laugh, sprang to Maria, and took refuge in her skirts. "Mamma did not tell me not to go," said she.

Janet looked at Maria: almost as if she would say, Can it be true that you have not done so?

"It is true," said Maria, answering the look. "I heard something about her running into the turret the last time she was here: I did not know it was of any consequence."

"She might fall through the loopholes," replied Janet. "Nothing could save her from being dashed to pieces."

Maria caught the child to her with an involuntary movement. "Meta, darling, do you hear? You must never go again."

Meta looked up fondly, serious now. Maria bent her face down on the little upturned one.

"Never again, darling; do not forget," she murmured. "Does Meta know that if harm came to her, mamma would never look up again? She would cry always."

Meta bustled out of her mamma's arms, and stood before Miss G.o.dolphin, earnest decision on her little face. "Aunt Janet, Meta won't run away again."

And when the child voluntarily made a promise, they knew that she would keep it. Margery whirled her away, telling her in high tones of a young lady of her own age who would do something that she was bade not to do: the consequence of which act was, that the next time she went out for a walk, she was run at by a bull with bra.s.s tips on his horns.

"Is the turret really dangerous?" inquired Maria.

"It is dangerous for a random child like Meta, who ventures into every hole and corner without reference to dust or danger," was Miss G.o.dolphin's answer. "Would you like to go up, Maria?"

"Yes, I should. I have heard George speak of the view from it."

"Mind, Maria, the stairs are narrow and winding," interposed Bessy.

Nevertheless, they went up, pa.s.sing the open loopholes which might be dangerous to Meta. The first thing that Maria's eyes encountered when they had reached the top was a small bow of violet-coloured ribbon. She stooped to pick it up.

"It is a bow off Janet's evening dress," exclaimed Bessy.

"Janet"--turning to her sister--"what can have brought it here?"

"I was up here last night," was the answer of Janet G.o.dolphin, spoken with composure.

"That's just like you, Janet!" retorted Bessy. "To watch for that foolish Shadow, I suppose."

"Not to watch for it. To see it."

Bessy was afflicted with a taint of heresy. They had never been able to imbue her with the superst.i.tion pertaining to the G.o.dolphins. Bessy had seen the Shadow more than once with her own eyes; but they were practical eyes and not imaginative, and could not be made to see anything mysterious in it. "The shadow is thrown by some tree or other,"

Bessy would say. And, in spite of its being pointed out to her that there was no tree, which _could_ cast a shadow on the spot, Bessy obstinately held to her own opinion.

Maria gazed from two sides of the turret. The view from both was magnificent. The one side overlooked the charming open country; the other, Prior's Ash. On the third side rose Lady G.o.dolphin's Folly, standing out like a white foreground to the lovely expanse of scenery behind it; the fourth side looked upon the Dark Plain.

"There's Charlotte Pain," said Bessy.

Charlotte had returned home, it appeared, since Maria met her, and changed her attire. She was pacing the terrace of the Folly in her riding-habit, a whip in hand, and some dogs surrounding her. Maria turned towards the Dark Plain, and gazed upon it.

"Is it true," she timidly asked, "that the Shadow has been there for the last night or two?"

Janet answered the question by asking another. "Who told you it was there, Maria?"

"I heard Margery say so."

"Margery?" repeated Janet. "That woman appears to know by instinct when the Shadow comes. She dreams it, I think. It is true, Maria, that it has appeared again," she continued, in a tone of unnatural composure. "I never saw it so black as it was last night."

"Do you believe that there can be anything in it--that it foretells ill?" asked Maria.

"I know that it is the tradition handed down with our house: I know that, in my own experience, the Shadow never came but it brought ill,"

was the reply of Miss G.o.dolphin.

"What caused the superst.i.tion to arise in the first instance?" asked Maria.

"Has George never told you the tale?" replied Janet.

"Never. He says he does not remember it clearly enough. Will you not tell it me, Janet?"

Janet hesitated. "One of the early G.o.dolphins brought a curse upon the house," she at length began, in a low tone. "It was that evil ancestor whose memory we would bury, were it possible; he who earned for himself the t.i.tle of the Wicked G.o.dolphin. He killed his wife by a course of gradual and long-continued ill-treatment. He wanted her out of the way that another might fill her place. He pretended to have discovered that she was not worthy: than which a.s.sertion nothing could be more false and shameless, for she was one of the best ladies ever created. She was a de Commins, daughter of the warrior Richard de Commins, and was brave as she was good. She died; and the Wicked G.o.dolphin turned her coffin out of the house on to the Dark Plain; there"--pointing to the open s.p.a.ce before the archway--"to remain until the day of interment. But he did not wait for that day of interment to bring home his second wife."

"Not wait!" exclaimed Maria, her eager ears drinking in the story.

"The habits in those early days will scarcely admit of allusion to them in these," continued Janet: "they savour of what is worse than barbarism--sin. The father, Richard de Commins, heard of his child's death, and hastened to Ashlydyat, arriving by moonlight. The first sounds he encountered were the revels of the celebration of the second marriage; the first sight he saw was the coffin of his daughter on the open plain, covered by a pall, two of her faithful women bending, the one at the head, the other at the foot, mourning the dead. While he halted there, kneeling in prayer, it was told to the Wicked G.o.dolphin that de Commins had arrived. He--that Wicked G.o.dolphin--rushed madly out, and drew his sword upon him as he knelt. De Commins was wounded, but not mortally, and he rose to defend himself. A combat ensued, de Commins having no resource but to fight, and he was killed; murdered.

Weary with his journey, enfeebled by age, weakened by grief, his foot slipped, and the Wicked G.o.dolphin, stung to fury by the few words of reproach de Commins had had time to speak, deliberately ran him through as he lay. In the moment of death, de Commins cursed the G.o.dolphins, and prophesied that the shadow of his daughter's bier, as it appeared then, should remain as a curse upon the G.o.dolphins' house for ever."

"But do you believe the story?" cried Maria, breathlessly.

"How much of it may be true, how much of it addition, I cannot decide,"

said Janet. "One fact is indisputable: that a shadow, bearing the exact resemblance of a bier, with a mourner at its head and another at its foot, does appear capriciously on that Dark Plain; and that it never yet showed itself, but some grievous ill followed for the G.o.dolphins. It is possible that the Shadow may have partially given rise to the story."

"Janet!" cried Maria, leaning forward, her own tones hushed, "is it _possible_ that one, in dying, can curse a whole generation, so that the curse shall take effect in the future?"

"Hush, child!" rebuked Janet. "It does not become us to inquire into these things. Controversy about them is utterly useless, worse than profitless; for there will be believers and unbelievers to the end of time. You wished me to tell you the story, Maria, and I have done so. I do no more. I do not tell you it is to be believed, or it is not to be believed. Let every one decide for himself, according as his reason, his instinct, or his judgment shall prompt him. People accuse me of being foolishly superst.i.tious touching this Shadow and these old traditions. I can only say the superst.i.tion has been forced upon me by experience.

When the Shadow appears, I cannot close my eyes to it and say, 'It is not there.' It _is_ there: and all I do is to look at it, and speculate.

When the evil, which _invariably_ follows the appearance of the Shadow, falls, I cannot close my heart to it, and say, in the teeth of facts, 'No evil has happened.' The Shadow never appeared, Maria, but it brought ill in its wake. It is appearing again now: and I am as certain that some great ill is in store for us, as that I am talking to you at this moment. On this point I _am_ superst.i.tious."

"It is a long time, is it not, since the Shadow last appeared?"

"It is years. But I have not quite finished the story," resumed Janet.

"The Wicked G.o.dolphin killed Richard de Commins, and buried him that night on the Dark Plain. In his fury and pa.s.sion he called his servants around him, ordered a grave to be dug, and a.s.sisted with his own hands.

De Commins was put into it without the rites of burial. Tradition runs that so long as the bones remain unfound, the place will retain the appearance of a graveyard. They have been often searched for. That tragedy, no doubt, gave its name to the place--'The Dark Plain.' It cannot be denied that the place does wear much the appearance of a graveyard: especially by moonlight."

"It is only the effect of the low gorse bushes," said Bessy. "They grow in a peculiar form. I know I would have those bushes rooted up, were I master of Ashlydyat!"

"Your father had it done, Bessy, and they sprang up again," replied Janet. "You must remember it."