“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 superstitious touching this Shadow and these old traditions. I can only say the superstition 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 superstitious.”
“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 Godolphin killed Richard de Commins, and buried him that night on the Dark Plain. In his fury and passion he called his servants around him, ordered a grave to be dug, and assisted 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.”
“It could not have been done effectually,” was Bessy’s answer. “Papa must have had lazy men at work, who left the roots in. I would dig it all up and make a ploughed field of it.”
“Did he do any other harm—that Wicked Godolphin?” asked Maria.
“He! Other harm!” reiterated Janet, something like indignation at Maria’s question mingling with surprise in her tone. “Don’t you know that it was he who gambled away Ashlydyat? After that second marriage of his, he took to worse and worse courses. It was said that his second wife proved a match for him, and they lived together like two evil demons. All things considered, it was perhaps a natural sequence that they should so live,” added Janet, severely. “And in the end he cut off the entail and gambled away the estate. Many years elapsed before the Godolphins could recover it.”
Maria was longing to put a question. She had heard that there were other superstitious marvels attaching to Ashlydyat, but she scarcely liked to mention them to the Miss Godolphins. George never would explain anything: he always turned it off, with laughing raillery.