“He had cause to smile,” interjected Margery, the words coming from her brokenly. “If ever a man has gone to his rest in heaven, it is Mr. Godolphin. He had more than his share of sorrow in this world, and God has taken him to a better.”
Every feeling in George’s heart echoed to the words, every pulse beat in wild sorrow for the death of his good brother,—every sting that remorse could bring pricked him with the consciousness of his own share in it. He thrust his burning face beyond the window into the cool night; he raised his eyes to the blue canopy of heaven, serene and fair in the moonlight, almost as if he saw in imagination the redeemed soul winging its flight thither. He pressed his hands upon his throbbing breast to still its emotion; but for the greatest exercise of self-control he would have burst into sobs, as Bexley had done; and it may be that he—he, careless George Godolphin—breathed forth a yearning cry to heaven to be pardoned his share of the past. If Thomas, in his changed condition, could look down upon him, now, with his loving eyes, his ever-forgiving spirit, he would know how bitter and genuine, how full of anguish were these regrets!
George leaned his head on the side of the window to subdue his emotion, to gather the outward calmness that man likes not to have ruffled before the world; he listened to the strokes of the passing-bell ringing out so sharply in the still night air: and every separate stroke was laden with its weight of pain.
CHAPTER IV.
GATHERED TO HIS FATHERS.
You might have taken it to be Sunday in Prior’s Ash—except that Sundays in ordinary did not look so gloomy. The shops were closed, a drizzling rain fell, and the heavy bell of All Souls’ was booming out at solemn intervals. It was tolling for the funeral of Thomas Godolphin. Morning and night, from eight o’clock to nine, had it so tolled since his death; but on this, the last day, it did not cease with nine o’clock, but tolled on, and would so toll until he should be in his last home. People had closed their shutters with one accord as the clock struck ten; some indeed had never opened them at all: if they had not paid him due respect always in life, they paid it to him in death. Ah, it was only for a time, in the first brunt of the shock, that Prior’s Ash mistook Thomas Godolphin. He had gone to his long home; to his last resting-place: he had gone to the merciful God to whom (it may surely be said!) he had belonged in life; and Prior’s Ash mourned for him.
You will deem this a sad story; perhaps bring a reproach upon me for recording it. That bell has tolled out all too often in its history; and this is not the first funeral you have seen at All Souls’. If I wrote only according to my own experiences of life, my stories would be always sad ones. Life wears different aspects for us, and its cares and its joys are unequally allotted out. At least they so appear to be. One glances up heavily from the burdens heaped upon him, and sees others without care basking in the sunshine. But I often wonder whether those who seem so gay, whose path seems to be cast on the broad, sunny road of pleasure,—whether they have not a skeleton in their closet. I look, I say, and wonder, marvelling what the reality may be. Nothing but gaiety, nothing but lightness, nothing, to all appearance, but freedom from care. Is it really so? Perhaps; with some—a very few. Is it well for those few? The broad road of pleasure, down which so many seem to travel, is not the safest road to a longer home, or the best preparation for it. Oh, if we could only see the truth when the burden upon us is heavy and long!—could only read how good it is!
But we never can. We are but mortal; born with a mortal’s keen susceptibility to care and pain. We preach to others, that these things are sent for their benefit; we complaisantly say so to ourselves when not actually suffering; but when the fiery trial is upon us, then we groan out in our sore anguish that it is greater than we can bear.
There is no doubt that, with the many, suffering predominates in life, and if we would paint life as it is, that suffering must form a comprehensive view in the picture. Reverses, sickness, death—they seem to follow some people as surely as the shadow follows the sun at noontide. It is probable; nay, it is certain, that minds are so constituted as to receive them differently. Witness, as a case in point, the contrast between Thomas Godolphin and his brother George. Thomas, looking back, could say that nearly the whole course of his life had been marked by sorrow. Some of its sources have been mentioned here; not all. There was the melancholy death of Ethel; there was the long-felt disease which marked him for its early prey; there was the dreadful crash, the disgrace, which nearly broke his heart. It is to those who feel them keenly that sorrows chiefly come.
And George? Look at him. Gay, light, careless, handsome George. What sorrows had marked his path? None. He had revelled in the world’s favour, he had made a wife of the woman he loved, he had altogether floated gaily down the sunniest part of the stream of life. The worry which his folly had brought upon himself, and which ended in his own ruin and in the ruin of so many others, he had not felt. No, he had scarcely felt it: and once let him turn his back on England and enter upon new scenes, he will barely remember it.
All Souls’ clock struck eleven, and the beadle came out of the church and threw wide the gates. It was very punctual, for there came the hearse in sight; punctual as he who was borne within it had in life always liked to be. Prior’s Ash peeped through the chinks of its shutters, behind its blinds and its curtains, to see the sight, as it came slowly winding along the street to the sound of the solemn bell. Through the mist of blinding tears, which rolled down many a face, did Prior’s Ash look out. They might have attended him to the grave, following unobtrusively, but that it was known to be the wish of the family that such demonstration should not be made: so they contented themselves with shutting up their houses, and observing the day as one of mourning. “Bury me in the plainest and simplest manner possible,” had been Thomas Godolphin’s directions when the end was drawing near. Under the circumstances, it was only seemly to do so; but so antagonistic were pomp and show of all kinds to the tastes of Thomas Godolphin, in all things that related to himself, that it is more than probable the same orders would have been given had he died as his forefathers had died—the Master of Ashlydyat, the wealthy chief of the Godolphins.