Before a word was spoken by him or by his wife; before George could still the emotion that was thumping at his heart, Margery came in with a scared face. In her flurry, her sudden grief, she addressed him as she had been accustomed to address him in his boyhood.
“Do you hear it, Master George? That’s the passing-bell! It is for him. There’s nobody else within ten miles they would trouble to have the bell tolled for at nigh ten o’clock at night. The Master of Ashlydyat’s gone.”
She sat down on a chair, regardless of the presence of her master and mistress, and, flinging her apron up to her face, burst into a storm of sobs.
A voice in the passage aroused her, for she recognized it as Bexley’s. George opened the room door, and the old man came in.
“It is all over, sir,” he said, his manner strangely still, his voice unnaturally calm and low, as is sometimes the case where emotion is striven to be suppressed. “Miss Janet bade me come to you with the tidings.”
George’s bearing was suspiciously quiet too. “It is very sudden, Bexley,” he presently rejoined.
Maria had risen and stood with one hand leaning on the table, her eyes strained on Bexley, her white face turned to him. Margery never moved.
“Very sudden, sir: and yet my mistress did not seem unprepared for it. He took his tea with her, and was so cheerful and well over it that I declare I began to hope he had taken a fresh turn. Soon afterwards Miss Bessy came back, and I heard her laughing in the room as she told them some story that had been related to her by Lady Godolphin. Presently my mistress called me in, to give me directions about a little matter she wanted done to-morrow, and while she was speaking to me, Miss Bessy cried out. We turned round and saw her leaning over my master. He had slipped back in his chair powerless, and I hastened to raise and support him. Death was in his face, sir; there was no mistaking it; but he was quite conscious, quite sensible, and smiled at us. ‘I must say farewell to you,’ he said, and Miss Bessy burst into a fit of sobs; but my mistress kneeled down quietly before him, and took his hands in hers, and said, ‘Thomas, is the moment come?’ ‘Yes, it is come,’ he answered, and he tried to look round at Miss Bessy, who stood a little behind his chair. ‘Don’t grieve,’ he said; ‘I am going on first’ but she only sobbed the more. ‘Good-bye, my dear ones,’ he continued; ‘good-bye, Bexley. I shall wait for you all, as I know I am being waited for. Fear?’ he went on, for Miss Bessy sobbed out something that sounded like the word: ‘fear, when I am going to God!—when Jesus——’”
Bexley fairly broke down with a great burst, and the tears were rolling silently over Maria’s cheeks. George wheeled round to the window and stood there with his back to them. Presently Bexley mastered himself and resumed: Margery had come forward then and taken her apron from her eyes.
“It was the last word he spoke—‘Jesus.’ His voice ceased, his hands fell, and the eyelids dropped. There was no struggle; nothing but a long gentle breath; and he died with the smile upon his lips.”