Page:The Lady's Book Vol. IV.pdf/18

Rh THE SUICIDE.

My father was a Shropshire country gentle- man, who, to an ancient descent and narrow in- come, added the blessing of a family of thirteen children. My mother having died in giving birth to the thirteenth of us, he married a second wife, whose single misfortune it was, as she used feelingly to lament, to have no offspring. My father, though a tender husband, bore this dis- pensation without repining; reconciled, no doubt, in some degree to it, by the daily cheering sight of thirteen rosy boys and girls, of all ages and sizes, seated at six o’clock in full health, appe- tite, and activity, at the long mahogany dining- table. This consoling spectacle was strongly backed by the butcher's weekly bills, which re- minded our parent punctually every Saturday morning, that Heaven had already done much for him, in respect of progeny, and sent him to church on Sunday perfectly resigned to the prospect of not having his troubles increased by his second lady. These considerations operating on a naturally contented mind, indeed so weigh- ed with my father, that instead of sharing in my step-mother’s distress at having no children, he appeared solicitous about nothing so much as how to dispose of that ample stock which he had been blessed with already. It happened, unfor- tunately, to our house, as to many other good houses, that while our honours had increased with time, our fortunes had waned with it; years,- which had steadily added to the antiquity of our name, had as regularly abstracted from the rents and profits of the domain; the genealogical tree shot its routs deep, and spread its branches far and wide, but the oaks were felled, and there was as much parchment on the land as would have sufficed for all the pedigrees of the Welch principality. When my father came into the possession of the estate, a prudent wife and gen- teel economy just enabled him to support the dignity of —— Place; he kept fewer servants, fewer horses, saw less company, than his father before him, but still the establishment was on a creditable and comfortable footing. As my mo- ther, however, successively blest him year after year with some one of us, matters began to wear another aspect; it became necessary to pare things closer and closer, and by the time that I, the seventh child and fourth son, had arrived at my full appetite, it was necessary to practice the most rigid economy, in order to keep half an ox on our table for our daily meal, and two or three clowns in livery behind our chairs, to change our plates and fill our glasses. Had our wants stopped here all would have been comparatively well, but being gentlemen of name in the county, it was essentially necessary to us that we should do as others of our own rank did; we were all accordingly for hunting, racing, attending balls, music méetings, &c.,and miserably was my poor father importuned to provide the means of our various indispensable amusements. In this state of things, it was not surprising that his most earnest wish was to see us “strike root into the pockets of the people” in some way. But he was a Whig, unfortunately, and could therefore do no more than put us in the right path against a favourable turn in public affairs; which, in the vulgar phraseology is the turn out of the opposite party, and the turnin of one’s own. My eldest brother, John, took orders that he might be ready for a living; the second, Charles, got, through the friendly interest of our Tory neigh- bour, Sir Marmaduke Boroughly, an ensigncy in the 60th foot; James went into the navy with a view to a ship when our friends should come in, and, poor fellow, he is at this day a midship- man of twelve years’ standing. Unluckily, I found, when my time arrived, that all the best things were disposed of. The Whig bishopric in expectancy, the staff appointment, the ship, were all gone, anticipated by my brothers; and now began my troubles, and the vexatious affair which led to the remarkable incident that is the main subject of this paper. One of my father’s earli- est and fastest friends was Mr. W——, an emi- nent London solicitor. Business brought this worthy man to our part of the country just at the time that the peace had thrown my brother Charles back on my father’s hands a half-pay ensign, and also my brother James a no-pay midshipman, and that my brother John had re- turned from college to take up hjs abode in the paternal mansion till a stall should be opened to him by a Whig administration. At this happy moment of reunion, Mr. W became our guest, and professionally acquainted as he was with my father’s affairs, the sizlt of his board, so graced with weli-grown sons from barrack, sea, and college—not to mention nine daughters, whose pink sashes alone must have required half a mile of riband—filled him with a friendly con- cern. My three brothers Aad their professions; [ alone was unprovided for, and there was a so- briety in my air which found favour in the eyes of our guest. The truth is, that I was naturally a romantic melancholy lad, and at this particular period a little affair of sentiment had deepened this complexion to a very respectable seriousness of deportment. So favourable was the impres- sion I produced on Mr. W——, that a few days after he had left us for London, a letter arrived from him containing an offer to my father, couched in the handsomest terms, to take me into his house as an articled clerk without the usual premium; and concluding with an intima- tion that in good time he would take me also into his firm. My father considered my fortune as made, but there was a sound in the word clerk that did not please me; it seemed to confound me with excisemen’s clerks, lawyer's clerks, and all the other clerks that I could think of in the town of D. At all events, thought I, Louisa Daventry must be consulted before I ac- cede to this derogatory proposal? I don’t like it