As Margery stood, about to turn home again, vexed for having been brought out in the cold for nothing more, and intending to give a few complimentary thanks for it to the young man who had been the means of sending her, she was accosted by Mr. Crosse, who had latterly been laid up in his house with gout. Not the slightest notice had he taken of George Godolphin and his wife since his return home, though he had been often with Thomas.
“How d’ye do, Margery?” he said, taking up Meta at the same time to kiss her. “Are you going to Ashlydyat with the rest?”
“Not I, the simpletons!” was Margery’s free rejoinder. “There’s my poor mistress alone in the house.”
“Is she ill?” asked Mr. Crosse.
“Ill!” returned Margery, not at all pleased at the question. “Yes, sir, she is ill. I thought everybody knew that.”
“When does she start for India?”
“She don’t start at all. She’ll be starting soon for a place a little bit nearer. Here! you run on and open the gate,” added Margery, whisking Meta from Mr. Crosse’s hand and sending her down the lane out of hearing. “She’ll soon be where Mr. Thomas Godolphin is, sir, instead of being marched off in a ship to India,” continued the woman, turning to Mr. Crosse confidentially.
He felt greatly shocked. In his own mind, he, as many others, had associated Maria with her husband, in regard to the summer’s work, in a lofty, scornful sort of way: but it did shock him to hear that she was in fear of death. It is most wonderful how our feelings towards others soften when we find that they and their shortcomings are about to be taken from us to a more merciful Judge.
“But what is the matter with her, Margery?” Mr. Crosse asked; for it happened that he had not heard the ominous rumours that were beginning to circulate in Prior’s Ash.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with her,” returned Margery. “I don’t believe old Snow knows, either. I suppose the worry and misfortunes have been too much for her; as they were for somebody else. Mr. Godolphin is in his grave, and now she’s going to hers.”