Part 70 (2/2)
Hardie pointed it out to Lucy with a chuckle. Lucy turned pale, and put her hand to her heart. Hardie saw his mistake too late, and muttered excuses.
Lucy gave a little gasp and stopped him. ”Pray say no more; it is my fault; if people will feign death, they must expect these little tributes. My uncle has lost no time.” And two unreasonable tears swelled to her eyes and trickled one after another down her cheeks; then she turned her back quickly on the thing, and Mr. Hardie felt her arm tremble. ”I think, Mr. Hardie,” said she presently, with marked courtesy, ”I should, under the circ.u.mstances, prefer to go home alone.
My aunt's nerves are sensitive, and I must think of the best way of breaking to her the news that I am alive.”
”It would be best, Miss Fountain; and, to tell the truth, I feel myself unworthy to accompany you after being so maladroit as to give you pain in thinking to amuse you.”
”Oh, Mr. Hardie,” said Lucy, growing more and more courteous, ”you are not to be called to account for my weakness; that _would_ be unjust. I shall have the pleasure of seeing you at dinner?”
”Certainly, since you permit me.”
He put Lucy into the carriage and off she drove. ”Come,” thought Mr.
Hardie, ”I have had an escape; what a stupid blunder for me to make!
She is not angry, though, so it does not matter. She asked me to dinner.”
Said Lucy to herself: ”The man is a fool! Poor Mr. Dodd! _he_ would not have shown me my tombstone--to amuse me.” And she dismissed the subject from her mind.
She sent away the carriage and entered Mr. Bazalgette's house on foot.
After some consideration she determined to employ Jane, a girl of some tact, to break her existence to her aunt. She glided into the drawing-room un.o.bserved, fully expecting to find Jane at work there for Mrs. Bazalgette. But the room was empty. While she hesitated what to do next, the handle of the door was turned, and she had only just time to dart behind a heavy window-curtain, when it opened, and Mrs.
Bazalgette walked slowly and silently in, followed by a woman. Mrs.
Bazalgette seated herself and sighed deeply. Her companion kept a respectful silence. After a considerable pause, Mrs. Bazalgette said a few words in a voice so thoroughly subdued and solemn, and every now and then so stifled, that Lucy's heart yearned for her, and nothing but the fear of frightening her aunt into a hysterical fit kept her from flying into her arms.
”I need not tell you,” said Mrs. Bazalgette, ”why I sent for you. You know the sad bereavement that has fallen on me, but you cannot know all I have lost in her. n.o.body can tell what she was to all of us, but most of all to me. I was her darling, and she was mine.” Here tears choked Mrs. Bazalgette's words, for a while. Recovering herself, she paid a tribute to the character of the deceased. ”It was a soul without one grain of selfishness; all her thoughts were for others, not one for herself. She loved us all--indeed, she loved some that were hardly worthy of so pure a creature's love; but the reason was, she had no eye for the faults of her friends; she pictured them like herself, and loved her own sweet image in them. _And_ such a temper! and so free from guile. I may truly say her mind was as lovely as her person.”
”She was, indeed, a sweet young lady,” sighed the woman.
”She was an angel, Baldwin--an angel sent to bear us company a little while, and now she is a saint in Heaven.”
”Ah! ma'am, the best goes first, that is an old saying.”
”So I have heard; but my niece was as healthy as she was lovely and good. Everything promised long life. I hoped she would have closed my eyes. In the bloom of health one day, and the next lying cold, stark, and drenched!! Oh, how terrible! Oh, my poor Lucy! oh! oh! oh!”
”In the midst of life we are in death, ma'am. I am sure it is a warning to me, ma'am, as well as to my betters.”
”It, is, indeed, Baldwin, a warning to all of us who have lived too much for vanities, to think of this sweet flower, s.n.a.t.c.hed in a moment from our bosoms and from the world; we ought to think of it on our knees, and remember our own latter end. That last skirt you sent me was rather scrimped, my poor Baldwin.”
”Was it, ma'am?”
”Oh, it does not matter; I shall never wear it now; and, under such a blow as this, I am in no humor to find fault. Indeed, with my grief I neglect my household and my very children. I forget everything; what did I send for you for?” and she looked with lack-l.u.s.ter eyes full in Mrs. Baldwin's face.
”Jane did not say, ma'am, but I am at your orders.”
”Oh, of course; I am distracted. It was to pay the last tribute of respect to her dear memory. Ah! Baldwin, often and often the black dress is all; but here the heart mourns beyond the power of grief to express by any outward trappings. No matter; the world, the shallow world, respects these signs of woe, and let mine be the deepest mourning ever worn, and the richest. And out of that mourning I shall never go while I live.”
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