Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/151

138 “But if he has no taste for it, Mrs. Harrington? If he is altogether superior to it?”

For the first time during the interview, the widow’s inflexible countenance was mildly moved, though not to any mild expression.

“My son will have not to consult his tastes,” she observed: and seeing the lady, after a short silence, quit her seat, she rose likewise, and touched the fingers of the hand held forth to her, bowing.

“You will pardon the interest I take in your son,” said Lady Roseley. “I hope, indeed, that his relatives and friends will procure him the means of satisfying the demands made upon him.”

“He would still have to pay them, my lady,” was the widow’s answer.

“Poor young man! indeed I pity him!” sighed her visitor. “You have hitherto used no efforts to persuade him to take such a step, Mrs. Harrington?”

“I have written to Mr. Goren, who was my husband’s fellow apprentice in London, my lady, and he is willing to instruct him in cutting, and measuring, and keeping accounts.”

Certain words in this speech were obnoxious to the fine ear of Lady Roseley, and she relinquished the subject.

“Your husband, Mrs. Harrington—I should so much have wished!—he did not pass away in—in pain?”

“He died very calmly, my lady.”

“It is so terrible, so disfiguring, sometimes. One dreads to see!—one can hardly distinguish! I have known cases where death was dreadful! But a peaceful death is very beautiful! There is nothing shocking to the mind. It suggests Heaven! It seems a fulfilment of our prayers!”

“Would your ladyship like to look upon him?” said the widow.

Lady Roseley betrayed a sudden gleam at having her desire thus intuitively fathomed.

“For one moment, Mrs. Harrington! We esteemed him so much! May I?”

The widow responded by opening the door, and leading her into the chamber where the dead man lay.

At that period when threats of invasion had formerly stirred up the military fire of us Islanders, the great Mel, as if to show the great Napoleon what character of being a British shopkeeper really was, had, by remarkable favour, obtained a lieutenancy of militia dragoons: in the uniform of which he had revelled, and perhaps for the only time in his life, felt that circumstance had suited him with a perfect fit. However that may be, his solemn final commands to his wife Henrietta Maria, on whom he could count for absolute obedience in such matters, had been, that as soon as the breath had left his body, he should be taken from his bed, washed, perfumed, powdered, and in that uniform dressed and laid out; with directions that he should be so buried at the expiration of three days, that havoc in his features might be hidden from men. In this array Lady Roseley beheld him. The curtains of the bed were drawn aside. The beams of evening fell soft through the blinds of the room, and cast a subdued light on the figure of the vanquished warrior. The Presence, dumb now for evermore, was sadly illumined for its last exhibition. But one who looked closely might have seen that Time had somewhat spoiled that perfect fit which had aforetime been his pride; and now that the lofty spirit had departed, there had been extreme difficulty in persuading the sullen excess of clay to conform to the dimensions of those garments. The upper part of the chest alone would bear its buttons, and across one portion of the lower limbs an ancient seam had started; recalling an incident to them who had known him in his brief hour of glory. For one night, as he was riding home from Fallowfield, and just entering the gates of the town, a mounted trooper spurred furiously past, and slashing out at him, gashed his thigh. Mrs. Melchisedec found him lying at his door in a not unwonted way; carried him up-stairs in her arms, as she had done many a time before, and did not perceive his state till she saw the blood on her gown. The cowardly assailant was never discovered; but Mel was both gallant, and had, in his military career, the reputation of being a martinet. Hence, divers causes were suspected. The wound failed not to mend, the trousers were repaired: Peace about the same time was made, and the affair passed over.

Looking on the fine head and face, Lady Roseley saw nothing of this. She had not looked long before she found covert employment for her handkerchief. The widow standing beside her did not weep, or reply to her whispered excuses at emotion: gazing down on his mortal length with a sort of benignant friendliness; aloof, as one whose duties to that form of flesh were well-nigh done. At the feet of his master, Jacko, the monkey, had jumped up, and was there squatted, with his legs crossed, very like a tailor! The imitative wretch had got a towel, and as often as Lady Roseley’s handkerchief travelled to her eyes, Jacko’s peery face was hidden, and you saw his lithe skinny body doing grief’s convulsions: till, tired of this amusement, he obtained possession of the warrior’s helmet, from a small round table on one side of the bed; a casque of the barbarous military-Georgian form, with a huge knob of horsehair projecting over the peak; and under this, trying to adapt it to his rogue’s head, the tricksy image of Death extinguished himself.

All was very silent in the room. Then the widow quietly disengaged Jacko, and taking him up, went to the door, and deposited him outside. During her momentary absence, Lady Roseley had time to touch the dead man’s forehead with her lips, unseen.

daughters and a son were left to the world by Mr. Melchisedec. Love, well endowed, had already claimed to provide for the daughters: first in the shape of a lean Marine subaltern, whose days of obscuration had now passed, and who had come to be a major of that corps: secondly, presenting his addresses as a brewer of distinction: thirdly, and for a climax, as a Portuguese Count: no other than the Señor Silva Diaz, Conde de Saldar: and this match did seem a far more resplendent one than that of the two elder sisters with Major Strike