The words were drowned in a noise outside. Charlotte had contrived to ascend to her seat in spite of the prancing horses. She stood up in the high carriage, as George Godolphin had once done at the same door, and by dint of strength and skill, subdued them to control. Turning their fiery heads, scattering the assembled multitude right and left, nodding pleasantly to the applause vouchsafed her, Mrs. Charlotte Pain and the turn-out disappeared with a clatter, amidst the rolling of wheels, the barking of dogs, and the intense admiration of the gaping populace.
On this same evening, Miss Godolphin sat at a window facing the west in their home at Ashlydyat. Soon to be their home no more. Her cheek rested pensively on her fingers, as she thought—oh, with what bitterness!—of the grievous past. She had been universally ridiculed for giving heed to the superstitious traditions attaching to the house, and yet how strangely they appeared to be working themselves out. It had begun—Janet seemed to think the ruin had begun—with the departure of her father, Sir George, from Ashlydyat: and the tradition went that when the head of the Godolphins should voluntarily abandon Ashlydyat, the ruin would follow.
Had Sir George’s departure brought on the ruin—been the first link in the chain that led to it? Janet was debating the question in her mind. That she was prone to indulging superstitious fancies to a degree many would pronounce ridiculously absurd cannot be denied: but in striving to solve that particular problem she was relinquishing the by-paths of the supernatural for the broad road of common sense. From the facts that were being brought to light by the bankruptcy, turning up by degrees one after another, it was easy to see that George Godolphin had been seduced into a hornet’s nest, and so been eased of his money. Whether the process had been summary or slow—whether he had walked into it head foremost in blind simplicity—or whether he had only succumbed to it under the most refined Machiavellian craft, it was of no consequence to inquire. It is of no consequence to us. He had fallen into the hands of a company of swindlers, who ensnared their victims and transacted their business under the semblance of bill-discounting: and they had brought George to what he was.
Head and chief of this apparently reputable firm was Verrall: and Verrall, there was not a doubt, had been chief agent in George Godolphin’s undoing. But for Sir George Godolphin’s quitting Ashlydyat and putting it up in the market to let, Verrall might never have come near Prior’s Ash; never have met Mr. George Godolphin. In that case the chances are that Mr. George would have been a flourishing banker still. Gay he would have been; needlessly extravagant; scattering his wild oats by the bushel—but not a man come to ruin and to beggary.
Janet Godolphin was right: it was the quitting Ashlydyat by her father, and the consequent tenancy of Mr. Verrall, which had been the first link in the chain, terminating in George’s disgrace, in their ruin.
She sat there, losing herself in regret after regret. “If my father had not left it!—if he had never married Mrs. Campbell!—if my own dear mother had not died!”—she lost herself, I say, in these regrets, bitter as they were vain.
How many of these useless regrets might embitter the lives of us all! How many do embitter them! If I had only done so-and-so!—if I had only taken the left turning when I took the right!—if I had only known what that man was from the first, and shunned his acquaintance!—if I had only chosen that path in life instead of this one!—if I had, in short, only done precisely the opposite to what I did do! Vain, vain repinings!—vain, useless, profitless repinings! The only plan is to keep them as far as possible from our hearts. If we could foresee the end of a thing from its beginning,—if we could buy a stock of experience at the outset of life,—if we could, in point of fact, become endowed with the light of Divine wisdom, what different men and women the world would contain!
But we cannot. We cannot undo the past. It is ours with all its folly, its short-sightedness, perhaps its guilt. Though we stretch out our yearning and pitiful hands to Heaven in their movement of agony—though we wail aloud our bitter cry, Lord, pardon me—heal me—help me!—though we beat on our remorseful bosom and lacerate its flesh in bitter repentance, we cannot undo the past. We cannot undo it. The past remains to us unaltered; and must remain so for ever.
Janet left the room. Thomas, who had been seated opposite to her, was buried in thought, when Bexley appeared, showing in Lord Averil.
He hastened forward to prevent Thomas Godolphin’s rising. Laying one hand upon his shoulder and the other on his hands, he pressed him down and would not let him rise.