Part 29 (1/2)
CHAPTER XVII.
AN EASY DISMISSAL.
”Admired Miranda!
Indeed the top of admiration! worth What's dearest to the world.”
_The Tempest._
”Well, father, it's too true!”
”You don't say so?”
”Yes; he died, Dr. Mainby's housekeeper says, at five o'clock this morning. The doctor was there all night, and he's now come home, and gone to bed.”
”One of the most unfortunate occurrences I ever heard of. Well, that that is, is--and can't be helped. I'd have given something (over and above the ten-and-sixpence) to have had it otherwise; but I 'spose, Jemmy, I 'spose we understand the claims of decency and humanity.” It was the editor of the _True Blue_ who said this.
”I 'spose we do,” answered the son st.u.r.dily, though sulkily; ”but that's the very best skit that Blank Blank ever did for us.”
”Blank Blank” was the signature under which various satirical verses appeared in the _True Blue_.
”Paid for, too--ten-and-six. Well, here goes, Jemmy.” He took a paper from his desk, read it over with a half smile. ”One or two of the jokes in it will keep,” he observed; then, when his son nodded a.s.sent, he folded it up and threw it in the fire. This was a righteous action. He never got any thanks for doing it; also a certain severity that he was inclined to feel against the deceased for dying just then, he quickly turned (from a sense of justice) towards the living members of his family, and from them to their party, the ”pinks” in general. Then he began to moralise. ”Captain Walker--and so he's dead--died at five o'clock this morning. It's very sudden. Why Mrs. Walker was driving him through the town three days ago.”
”Yes,” answered the son; ”but when a man has heart complaint, you never know where you are with him.”
A good many people in Wigfield and round it discussed that death during the day; but few, on the whole, in a kindlier spirit than had been displayed by the editor of the opposition paper. Mrs. A'Court, wife of the vicar, and mother of d.i.c.k A'Court, remarked that she was the last person to say anything unkind, but she did value consistency.
”Everybody knows that my d.i.c.k is a high churchman; they sent for him to administer the holy communion, and he found old Mr. Mortimer there, a layman, who is almost, I consider, a Methodist, he's so low church; and poor Captain Walker was getting him to pray extempore by his bed. Even afterward he wouldn't let him out of his sight. And d.i.c.k never remonstrated. Now, that is not what I could have hoped of my son; but when I told him so, he was very much hurt, said the old man was a saint, and he wouldn't interfere. 'Well, my dear,' I said, 'you must do as you please; but remember that your mother values consistency.'”
When Mrs. Melcombe, who, with her son and Laura, was still at Paris, heard of it, she also made a characteristic remark. ”Dear me, how sad!”
she exclaimed; ”and there will be that pretty bride, Mrs. Brandon, in mourning for months, till all her wedding dresses, in fact, are out of fas.h.i.+on.”
Mrs. Melcombe had left Melcombe while it was at its loveliest, all the hawthorns in flower, the peonies and lilies of the valley. She chose first to go to Paris, and then when Peter did not seem to grow, was thin and pale, she decided--since he never seemed so well as when he had no lessons to do--that she would let him accompany them on their tour.
Melcombe was therefore shut up again; and the pictures of Daniel Mortimer and the young lieutenant, his uncle, remained all the summer in the dark. But Wigfield House was no sooner opened after Captain Walker's funeral than back came the painters, cleaners, and upholsterers, to every part of it; and the whole place, including the garden, was set in order for the bride.
Emily was not able to have any of the rest and seclusion she so much needed; but almost immediately took her one child and went to stay with her late husband's father till she could decide where to live.
Love that has been received affects the heart which has lost it quite differently from a loss where the love has been bestowed. The remembrance of it warms the heart towards the dear lost donor; but if the recollection of life spent together is without remorse, if, as in Emily's case, the dead man has been wedded as a tribute to his acknowledged love, and if he has not only been allowed to bestow his love in peace without seeing any fault or failing that could give him one twinge of jealousy--if he has been considered, and liked thoroughly, and, in easy affectionate companions.h.i.+p, his wife has walked beside him, delighting him, and pleased to do so--then, when he is gone, comes, as the troubled heart calms itself after the alarms of death and parting, that one, only kind of sorrow which can ever be called with truth ”the luxury of grief.”
In her mourning weeds, when she reached Fred's father's house, Emily loved to sit with her boy on her lap, and indulge in pa.s.sionate tears, thinking over how fond poor Fred had been, and how proud of her. There was no sting in her grief, no compunction, for she knew perfectly well how happy she had made him; and there was not the anguish, of personal loss, and want, and bereavement.
She looked pale when she reached Mr. Walker's house, but not worn. She liked to tell him the details of his son's short illness; and the affectionate, irascible old man not only liked to hear them, but derived pleasure from seeing this fine young woman, this interesting widow, sitting mourning for his son. So he made much of her, and pushed her sister Louisa at once into the background for her sake.
The sisters having married twin brothers, Mr. Walker's elder sons, neither had looked on himself as heir to the exclusion of the other; but Emily's pale morsel of a child was at once made more important than his father had ever been. Louisa, staying also with her husband in the house, was only the expectant mother of a grandson for him; and the rich old man now began almost immediately to talk of how he should bring up Emily's boy, and what he should do for him--taking for granted, from the first, that his favourite daughter-in-law was to live with him and keep his house.
Louisa took this change in Mr. Walker very wisely and sweetly--did not even resent it, when, in the presence of his living son, he would aggravate himself into lamentations over the dead one, as if in him he had lost his all.
Sometimes he wondered a little himself at this quiescence--at the slight impression he seemed to make on his son, whom he had fully intended to rouse to remonstrance about it--at the tender way in which the young wife ministered to her sister, and at the great change for the worse that he soon began to observe in Emily's appearance.
n.o.body liked to tell him the cause, and he would not see it; even when it became an acknowledged fact, which every one else talked of, that the little one was ill, he resolutely refused to see it; said the weather was against a child born in India--blamed the east wind. Even when the family doctor tried to let him know that the child was not likely to be long for this world, he was angry, with all the unreasonable volubility of a man who thinks others are deceiving him, rather than grieved for the peril of the little life and the anguish of the mother's heart.