Part 53 (1/2)
”I know all. I can read your heart. A lost being though you be, you have still me to watch over you. When you quit this earthly tabernacle, if you have given up taking in the _Field_, and have come to realise your fallen condition, there is a chance--a distant chance--but yet one of our union becoming eternal.”
”You don't mean to say so,” said Mr. Woolfield, his jaw falling.
”There is--there is that to look to. That to lead you to turn over a new leaf. But it can never be if you become united to that Flibbertigibbet.”
Mentally, Benjamin said: ”I must hurry up with my marriage!” Vocally he said: ”Dear me! Dear me!”
”My care for you is still so great,” continued the apparition, ”that I intend to haunt you by night and by day, till that engagement be broken off.”
”I would not put you to so much trouble,” said he.
”It is my duty,” replied the late Mrs. Woolfield sternly.
”You are oppressively kind,” sighed the widower.
At dinner that evening Mr. Woolfield had a friend to keep him company, a friend to whom he had poured out his heart. To his dismay, he saw seated opposite him the form of his deceased wife.
He tried to be lively; he cracked jokes, but the sight of the grim face and the stony eyes riveted on him damped his spirits, and all his mirth died away.
”You seem to be out of sorts to-night,” said his friend.
”I am sorry that I act so bad a host,” apologised Mr. Woolfield. ”Two is company, three is none.”
”But we are only two here to-night.”
”My wife is with me in spirit.”
”Which, she that was, or she that is to be?”
Mr. Woolfield looked with timid eyes towards her who sat at the end of the table. She was raising her hands in holy horror, and her face was black with frowns.
His friend said to himself when he left: ”Oh, these lovers! They are never themselves so long as the fit lasts.”
Mr. Woolfield retired early to bed. When a man has screwed himself up to proposing to a lady, it has taken a great deal out of him, and nature demands rest. It was so with Benjamin; he was sleepy. A nice little fire burned in his grate. He undressed and slipped between the sheets.
Before he put out the light he became aware that the late Mrs. Woolfield was standing by his bedside with a nightcap on her head.
”I am cold,” said she, ”bitterly cold.”
”I am sorry to hear it, my dear,” said Benjamin.
”The grave is cold as ice,” she said. ”I am going to step into bed.”
”No--never!” exclaimed the widower, sitting up. ”It won't do. It really won't. You will draw all the vital heat out of me, and I shall be laid up with rheumatic fever. It will be ten times worse than damp sheets.”
”I am coming to bed,” repeated the deceased lady, inflexible as ever in carrying out her will.
As she stepped in Mr. Woolfield crept out on the side of the fire and seated himself by the grate.
He sat there some considerable time, and then, feeling cold, he fetched his dressing-gown and enveloped himself in that.