Poor Mrs. Bourdillon! She had passed a miserable day. She had her own—her private grounds for anxiety on Arthur’s account, and that anxiety had been strengthened by her last talk with Josina. She was sure that something was wrong with him, and this had so weighed on her spirits and engrossed her thoughts, that the danger that menaced the bank and her little fortune had not at first disturbed her. But as the tale of village gossip grew, and the rumors of disaster became more insistent, she had been forced to listen, and her fears once aroused, she had not been slow to awake to her position. Gradually Arthur’s absence and her misgivings on his account had taken the second place. The prospect of ruin, of losing her all and becoming dependent on the Squire’s niggard bounty, had closed her mind to other terrors.
So at noon on this day, unable to bear her thoughts alone, she had walked across the fields and seen Josina. But Josina had not been able to reassure her. The girl had said as little as might be about Arthur, and on the subject of the bank was herself so despondent that she had no comfort for another. The Squire had gone to town—for the first time since he had been laid up—in company with Sir Charles, and Josina fancied that it might be upon the bank business. But she hardly dared to hope that good could come of it, and Mrs. Bourdillon, who flattered herself that she knew the Squire, had no hope. She had returned from Garth more wretched than she had gone, and had she been a much wiser woman than she was, she would have found it hard to meet her son with tact.
When she heard his footsteps on the road, “Is it you?” she cried. And as he came forward into the light, “Oh, Arthur!” she wailed, “what have you brought us to? What have you done? And the times and times I’ve warned you! Didn’t I tell you that those Ovingtons——”
“Well, come in now, mother,” he said. He stooped and kissed her on the forehead. He was very patient with her—let it be said to his credit.
“But, oh dear, dear!” She had lost control of herself and could not stay her complaints if she would. “You would have your way! And you see what has come of it! You would do it! And now—what am I to say to your uncle?”
“You can leave him to me,” Arthur replied doggedly. “And for goodness’ sake, mother, come in and shut the door. You don’t want to talk to the village, I suppose? Come in.”
He shepherded her into the parlor and closed the door on them. He was cold, and he went to the fire and stooped over it, warming his hands at the blaze.
“But the bank?”
“Oh, the bank’s gone,” he said.
She began to cry. “Then, I don’t know what’s to become of us!” she sobbed. “It’s everything we have to live upon! And you know it wasn’t I signed the order to—to your uncle! I never did—it was you—wrote my name. And now—it has ruined us! Ruined us!”