Mrs. Akeman rose from her chair, and began pacing the room. She did not speak in a loud tone; not so much in an angry one, as in a clear, sharp, decisive one. It was just the tone used by the Rector of All Souls’ when in his cynical moods.
“He has been a respected man all his life; he has kept up his position——”
“Of whom do you speak?” interrupted Maria, really not sure whether she was applying the words satirically to George Godolphin.
“Of whom do I speak!” retorted Grace. “Of your father and mine. I say he has been respected all his life; has maintained his position as a clergyman and a gentleman, has reared his children suitably, has exercised moderate hospitality at the Rectory, and yet was putting something by that we might have a few pounds each, at his death, to help us on in the world. Not one of his children but wants helping on: except the grand wife of Mr. George Godolphin.”
“Grace! Grace!”
“And what have you brought him to?” continued Grace, lifting her hand in token that she would have out her say. “To poverty in his old age—he is getting old, Maria—to trouble, to care, to privation: perhaps to disgrace as a false trustee. I would have sacrificed my husband, rather than my father.”
Maria lifted her aching head. The reproaches were cruel, and yet they told home. It was her husband who had ruined her father: and it may be said, ruined him deliberately. Grace resumed, answering the last thought almost as if she had divined it.
“If ever a shameless fraud was committed upon another, George Godolphin wilfully committed it when he took that nine thousand pounds. Prior’s Ash may well be calling him a swindler!”
“Oh, Grace, don’t!” she said imploringly. “He could not have known that it was unsafe to take it.”
“Could not have known!” indignantly returned Grace. “You are either a fool, Maria, or you are deliberately saying what you know to be untrue. You must be aware that he never entered it in the books—that he appropriated it to his own use. He is a heartless, bad man! He might have chosen somebody else to prey upon, rather than his wife’s father. Were I papa, I should prosecute him.”