The roll was supplied also. What would not Maria have supplied, if asked for? All these commonplace trifles appeared so pitiably insignificant beside the dreadful trouble come upon them.
“A little more sugar, please, mamma.”
Before any answer could be given to this latter demand, either in word or action, a tremendous summons at the hall-door resounded through the house. Maria shrank from its sound. A fear, she knew not of what, had taken up its abode within her, some strange, undefined dread, connected with her husband.
Her poor heart need not have beaten so; her breath need not have been held, her ears strained to listen. Pierce threw open the dining-room door, and there rushed in a lady, all demonstrative sympathy and eagerness. A lady in a handsome light Cashmere shawl, which spread itself over her dress and nearly covered it, and a straw hat, with an upright scarlet plume.
It was Charlotte Pain. She seized Maria’s hand and impulsively asked what she could do for her. “I knew it would be so!” she volubly exclaimed—“that you’d be looking like a ghost. That’s the worst of you, Mrs. George Godolphin! You let any trifle worry you. The moment I got the letters in this morning, and found how badly things were turning out for your husband, I said to myself, ‘There’ll be Mrs. George in the dumps!’ And I flung this shawl on to cover my toilette, for I was not en grande tenue, and came off to cheer you, and see if I could be of any use.”
Charlotte flung her shawl off as she spoke, ignoring ceremony. She had taken the chair vacated by Thomas Godolphin, and with a dexterous movement of the hands, the shawl fell behind her, disclosing the “toilette.” A washed-out muslin skirt of no particular colour, tumbled, and a little torn; and some strange-looking thing above it, neither jacket nor body, of a bright yellow, the whole dirty and stained.
“You are very kind,” answered Maria, with a shrinking spirit and a voice that faltered. Two points in Mrs. Pain’s words had struck upon her ominously. The mention of the letters, and the hint conveyed in the expression, things turning out “badly” for George. “Have you heard from him?” she continued.
“Heard from him!—how could I?” returned Charlotte. “London letters don’t come in this morning. What should he have to write to me about, either? I have heard from another quarter, and I have heard the rumours in Prior’s Ash.”
“Will you tell me what you have heard?” rejoined Maria.
“Well,” said Charlotte in a friendly tone, as she leaned towards her, “I suppose the docket will be struck to-day—if it is not struck already. The Philistines are down on the house, and mean to declare it bankrupt.”