Up came the train. Two or three solitary passengers, bound for the place, descended, two or three entered. The whistle sounded; the engine shrieked and puffed: and George Godolphin, nodding familiarly around with his gay smile, was carried on his road to London.
Maria had sat on, her blinding tears falling. What an alteration it was! What a contrast to the happiness of the morning! That a few minutes should have power to bring forth so awful a change! The work she had done so eagerly before, lay on the table. Where had its enjoyment gone? She turned from it now with a feeling not far removed from sickness. Nothing could be thought of but the great trouble which had fallen; there was no further satisfaction to be derived from outward things. The work lay there, untouched; destined, though she knew it not, never to have another stitch set in it by its mistress; and she sat on and on, her hands clasped inertly before her, her brain throbbing with its uncertainty and its care.
CHAPTER XX.
MRS. BOND’S VISIT.
In the old study at All Souls’ Rectory—if you have not forgotten that modest room—in the midst of almost as much untidiness as used to characterize it when the little Hastingses were in their untidy ages, sat some of them in the summer’s evening. Rose’s drawings and fancy-work lay about; Mrs. Hastings’s more substantial sewing lay about; and a good deal of litter besides out of Reginald’s pocket; not to speak of books belonging to the boys, fishing-tackle, and sundries.
Nothing was being touched, nothing used; it all lay neglected, as Maria Godolphin’s work had done, earlier in the afternoon. Mrs. Hastings sat in a listless attitude, her elbow on the old cloth cover of the table, her face turned to her children. Rose sat at the window; Isaac and Reginald were standing by the mantel-piece; and Grace, her bonnet thrown off on to the floor, her shawl unpinned and partially falling from her shoulders, half sat, half knelt at her mother’s side, her face upturned to her, asking for particulars of the calamity. Grace had come running in only a few minutes ago, eager, anxious, and impulsive.
“Only think the state I have been in!” she cried. “But one servant in the house, and unable to leave baby to get down here! I——”
“What brings you with only one servant?” interrupted Rose.
“Ann’s mother is ill, and I have let her go home until Monday morning. I wish you would not interrupt me with frivolous questions, Rose!” added Grace in her old, quick, sharp manner. “Any other day but Saturday, I would have left baby to Martha, and she might have put off her work, but on Saturdays there’s always so much to do. I had half a mind to come and bring the baby myself. What should I care, if Prior’s Ash did see me carrying him? But, mamma, you don’t tell me—how has this dreadful thing been brought about?”
“I tell you, Grace!” returned Mrs. Hastings. “I should be glad to know, myself.”
“There’s a report going about—Tom picked it up somewhere and brought it home to me—that Mr. George Godolphin had been playing pranks with the Bank’s money,” continued Grace.