Until they lost him, they did not fully know the importance of Julius in
the household. He was a very limb lopt off. To miss his tiny step at the
door, his chubby face at their knees, his ringing voice about the rooms
and corridors, made all appear very desolate at the Heronry. Though
there had been no funeral, no room made dismal for ever by the presence
of his coffin, and though there was no little green grave in the
churchyard, yet the house seemed a tomb haunted by the dim shadow of his
form, and saddened by the echoes of his voice.
Every endeavour was made to recover the poor child’s body. The Mine Pool
was searched and dragged—it was even proposed to pump it dry; but the
numerous crannies and recesses that lurked in its gloomy depths
precluded much prospect of success, though the attempts were still
persisted in after all hope was relinquished.
Lady Lee’s grief was of that silent sort which does not encourage
attempts to console the mourner. She did not talk about her boy; she was
not often observed to weep—but, whenever any stray relic brought the
poor child strongly before her mind’s eye, she might be seen gazing at
it with woeful earnestness, while her imagination “stuffed out his
vacant garments with his form.” Rosa, observing this, stealthily
removed, one by one, all the objects most likely to recall his image,
and conveyed them to her own chamber; and she and Orelia avoided, so far
as might be, while in Lady Lee’s presence, all allusions to their little
lost friend. But in their own room at night they would talk about him
for hours, cry themselves to sleep, and recover him in their dreams. A
large closet in their apartment was sacred to his memory; his clothes,
his rocking-horse, his trumpet, his musket, his box of dominoes, and a
variety of other peaceful and warlike implements were stored there, and
served vividly to recall the image of their late owner.
Rosa, waking in the morning with her face all swoln with crying, would
indulge her grief with occasional peeps into the cupboard at these
melancholy relics; while Orelia, a more austere mourner, sat silent
under the hands of Fillett, whose sadness was of an infectious and
obtrusive nature. Kitty would sniff, sigh, compress her under lip with
her teeth, and glance sideways through her red, watery eyes at the
sympathetic Rosa.
“I dreamt of dear Juley again last night, Orelia,” Rosa would say.
“Oh, Miss Rosa, so did I,” Fillett would break in, eager to give audible
vent to her sorrow, “and so did Martha. Martha says she saw him like an
angel; but I dreamed that I saw him galloping away upon Colonel Lee’s
horse, and that I called and called, ‘Master Juley!’ says I, the same as
if it had been real, ‘come to Kitty!’ but he never looked back. And the
butler dreamed the night before last he was drawing a bottle of port,
and just as he was going to stick in the corkscrew, he saw the cork was
in the likeness of Master Juley, and he woke up all of a cold shiver.”
Conversations on this subject did not tend to cheer the young ladies’
countenances before they met Lady Lee at the breakfast-table. On their
way down stairs they would form the sternest resolutions (generally
originating with Orelia, and assented to by Rosa), as to their
self-command, and exertions to be cheerful in the presence of their
still more afflicted friend. They would walk up and kiss her pale,
mournful face, feeling their stoicism sorely tried the while, and
sitting down to table would try to get up a little conversation; till
Rosa would suddenly sob and choke in her breakfast cup, and there was an
end of the attempt.
This melancholy state of things was not confined to the drawing-room. A
dismal hush pervaded the household, and the servants went about their
avocations with slow steps and whispered voices. They took a strange
pleasure, too, in assembling together at night, and remembering warnings
and omens which were supposed to have foreshadowed the mournful fate of
the poor little baronet. Exactly a week before the event, the cook had
been woke while dozing before the kitchen fire after supper, by a voice
calling her name three times, and when she looked round there was nobody
there. The very day month before his loss, the housekeeper distinctly
remembered to have dreamt of her grandmother, then deceased about half a
century, who had appeared to her in a lavender gown trimmed with crape,
and black mittens, and she had said the next morning that she was sure
something would happen; in support of which prophecy she appealed to Mr
Short the butler, who confirmed the same, and added, on his own account,
that an evening or two afterwards he had heard a strange noise in the
cellar, which might have been rats, but he didn’t think it was.
The sight of Fillett, so intimately connected with the memory and the
fate of her lost child, was naturally painful to Lady Lee, and Kitty,
perceiving this to be the case, wisely kept out of her way, devoting
herself entirely to the young ladies. Self-reproach greatly increased
the sharpness of Kitty’s sorrow for poor Julius; she accused herself of
having, by her negligence, contributed to the unhappy catastrophe. She
fancied, too, that she could read similar reproach in the behaviour of
her fellow-servants towards her; with the exception, however, of Noble,
who, melted at the sight of her melancholy, and forgetting all his
previous causes of jealous resentment, was assiduous in his efforts to
console her.
“Come,” said Harry, meeting her near the stables one evening—“come,
cheer up. Why, you ain’t like the same girl. Anybody would think you had
killed the poor boy.”
“I feel as if I had, Noble,” said Kitty, with pious austerity.
“But you shouldn’t think so much about it, you know,” replied her
comforter. “It can’t be helped now. You’re crying of your eyes out, and
they ain’t a quarter so bright as what they was.”
“Ho, don’t talk to me of heyes,” said Kitty, at the same time flashing
at him a glance from the corners of the organs in question. “This is no
time for such vanities. We ought to think of our souls, Noble.”
Noble appeared to be thinking just then less of souls than of bodies,
for in his anxiety to comfort her he had passed his arm round her waist.
“Noble, I wonder at you!” exclaimed Kitty, drawing away from him with a
reproving glance. “After the warning we’ve all had, such conduct is
enough to call down a judgment upon us. I’m all of a trimble at the
thoughts of what will become of you, if you don’t repent.”
Perhaps Harry may be excused for not seeing any immediate connection
between the decease of his young master and the necessity of himself
becoming an ascetic. But Kitty, in the excess of her penitence, from
being as lively and coquettish a waiting-maid as could be found anywhere
off the stage, suddenly became a kind of Puritan. It happened that at
this time the members of a religious sect, very numerous in Doddington,
having been suddenly seized with an access of religious zeal, held
almost nightly what they termed “revivals”—meetings where inspired
brethren poured forth their souls in extempore prayer; and those who
were not fortunate enough to obtain possession of the platform
indemnified themselves by torrents of pious ejaculations, which
well-nigh drowned the voice of the principal orator. There is something
attractive to the plebeian imagination in the idea of taking heaven by
storm: the clamour, excitement, and _éclat_ attending a public
conversion had caused the ranks of these uproarious devotees to be
recruited by many of their hearers, for the most part susceptible
females; and Kitty, going to attend these meetings under the escort of
Mr Noble (who, with profound hypocrisy, affected a leaning towards
Methodism as soon as he perceived Miss Fillett’s bias in that
direction), was converted the very first night. The grocer whose
lodgings Oates and Bruce occupied was the preacher on this occasion, and
his eloquence was so fervid and effective that, coupled with the heat of
the place, it threw Kitty into hysterics. At the sight of so fair a
penitent in this condition, many brethren of great sanctity hastened to
her assistance, and questioned her so earnestly and affectionately as to
her spiritual feelings, some of them even embracing her in the excess of
their joy at seeing this good-looking brand snatched from the burning,
that Mr Noble, conceiving (erroneously no doubt) that they were somewhat
trenching on his prerogative, interfered, and conveyed her from the
scene. After this, Kitty became a regular attendant at the revivals, and
her demeanour grew more serious than ever, insomuch that Mr Dubbley,
ignorant of this change in her sentiments, and petitioning for a meeting
at the white gate, received an unexpected and dispiriting repulse.
The personage who seemed the least affected by grief of the household
was the cat Pick. Perhaps he missed the teazings and tuggings, and
frequent invasions of his majestic ease, which he had been wont to
sustain; if so, this was probably to him a source of private
self-congratulation and rejoicing. Never was a cat so petted as he now
was, for the sake of his departed master, with whom he had been such a
favourite. But Pick, far from testifying any regret, eat, lapped,
purred, basked, and washed his face with his paw, as philosophically as
ever.
The Curate’s sorrow at the event did him good—it distracted his mind
from his own sorrows, and gave a new direction to his feelings for
Hester. The unselfishness of his nature had an opportunity of displaying
itself on the occasion. The thought of Lady Lee’s grief had roused his
warmest sympathies, and he longed to comfort her—he longed to sit by her
side, to hold her hand, to pour forth words of consolation and hope. He
had done this, but not to the extent he could have wished; he could not
trust himself for that. The Curate felt the most deep and tender pity
for her—and we all know what pity is akin to: those very near relations,
the Siamese twins, were not more closely allied than the Curate’s
compassion and love for Lady Lee. Therefore Josiah, in his moments of
extremest sympathy, kept watch and ward upon his heart, and said not all
he felt.
But he bethought himself of preaching a sermon on the subject. He was
conscious that his sermons had of late lacked earnestness and spirit;
and he would now pour his feelings into a discourse at once touching and
consolatory. He chose for his text, “_He was the only son of his mother,
and she was a widow._” He had intended to extract from this text a
hopeful moral, and to set forth powerfully the reasons for being
resigned and trustful under such trials. But the poor Curate felt too
deeply himself on the occasion to be the minister of comfort to others,
and, breaking down half-a-dozen times from emotion, set all Lanscote
weeping.
“How could you make us all cry so, Josiah?” asked Rosa, reproachfully.
“Weren’t we sad enough before?”
In fact, it seemed as if poor Julius might have lived long, and died at
a green old age, without being either more faithfully remembered or more
sincerely lamented.
Finding themselves disappointed in all their efforts to comfort Lady
Lee, Orelia and Rosa came to the conclusion that, so long as she
remained at the Heronry, she would never cease to be saddened by the
image of the lost Juley. So they agreed it would be well to persuade her
to leave the now sorrowful scene; and no place seemed so likely to
divert her sorrow, by making a powerful appeal to her feelings, as
Orelia’s cottage. Here she might recall her maiden fancies, and renew
her youth, while her married life might slip aside like a sad episode in
her existence.
“We’ll all start together next week,” said Orelia, when she had obtained
Lady Lee’s sanction to this arrangement.
“No,” said Rosa, “not all, Reley. You and Hester shall go.”
“What does the monkey mean?” cried Orelia. “You don’t suppose we’re
going without you, do you?”
“You know I should like to accompany you, Reley,” said Rosa, “and you
know I shall be dreadfully disconsolate without you; but I must go and
live with Josiah.”
“Live with Josiah, indeed!” quoth Orelia, with high scorn. “What does
Josiah want of you, d’ye think, to plague his life out? Hasn’t he got
that Mrs what’s-her-name, his housekeeper, to take care of him and his
property? I’m sure I never see the woman without thinking of
candle-ends.”
“’Tisn’t to take care of him that I stay, but to comfort him,” said
Rosa. “You’ve no idea how low-spirited Josiah has been this some time
past, ever since his friend Captain Fane went away. He has lost his
interest in his books and flowers, and sits for hours in thought looking
so melancholy. Oh! I couldn’t think of leaving him.”
Rosa persisted in this determination, and all the concession they could
obtain was, that as soon as Josiah recovered his spirits she would
rejoin her friends at Orelia’s cottage. Meantime, the latter and Lady
Lee made preparations for a speedy departure.