DEATH IN ANOTHER SHAPE.
In the afternoon Mrs. Martin walked up to the farm to see Mrs. Rushmere
and Dorothy, and to call upon their new friends. Dorothy had not been to
the parsonage for three weeks, and her place at church and in the Sunday
school had been vacant. Mr. Martin and his wife suspected that all was
not right with Dorothy; that either her mother was worse, or that she
was so fatigued with overwork that she was unable to attend to these
important duties; both were convinced that Dorothy would never desert
her post unless compelled to do so. Mrs. Martin had been confined to
the house by the dangerous illness of little Johnnie, whom the doctor
had only pronounced that day out of danger. Anxious as she was to learn
in what manner Dorothy had borne the meeting with her lover, and whether
his wife and mother were agreeable people, she had not been able to
leave the sick-bed of her child to satisfy her natural curiosity. When
Dorothy opened the door, she was startled by her pale face and altered
appearance.
"My dear girl, are you ill?"
"Not ill--only heartsick, weary of the world and its ways. If it were
not for the love of a few dear friends, I could leave it to-morrow
without the least regret."
As she said this, the poor girl looked so sadly and earnestly into Mrs.
Martin's face, that it brought the tears into her eyes.
"You must have thought that we had forsaken you altogether; but Johnnie
has been very ill, alarmingly so; and I could not leave him to the care
of the servant. Henry would have been up to see you, but since Mr.
Fitzmorris has left us, every moment of his time has been occupied, as
he is obliged to take the charge of both the parishes, with the
additional care of the Sunday schools; I have been unable to attend my
class, and your absence threw all the work upon him."
"Mr. Fitzmorris gone?" Dorothy turned pale and almost gasped for breath.
"What took him away?"
"A sad, sad accident. Did no one tell you of it."
"My dear Mrs. Martin, how should I hear the news of the parish. I am
confined all day, and sometimes during the greater part of the night, to
my mother's sick-room. But tell me about Mr. Fitzmorris; I have felt
grieved and hurt at his seeming desertion of us, when Mrs. Rushmere
grew so much worse. Is anything amiss with Lord Wilton?"
"His lordship has written once to his nephew, since he left England. In
his letter he spoke very despondingly of the health of his son. Mr.
Fitzmorris' sudden departure from Hadstone had no reference to the Earl
or his affairs. In truth, Dorothy, it is a sad tale. His brother is
dead. Lost his life by a fall from his horse in a steeple chase. Mr.
Fitzmorris was sent for in all haste. He started immediately, and though
his brother was living when he arrived at ----, he was unconscious, and
never recovered his senses before he died. Poor Mr. Fitzmorris feels
this dreadfully, and keenly regrets that he was not able to prepare him
for the awful change from time to eternity--that his brother should die
in his sins among gamblers and men of the world, who had dissipated his
fortune and led him astray."
"It is dreadful!" said Dorothy. "I know how he feels it; I believe that
if he could have saved his brother's soul by the sacrifice of his own,
he would have done it. But will he ever return to Hadstone?"
"Directly he can arrange his brother's affairs, which are in a state of
great confusion. His reckless extravagance has involved the estate, and
Gerard is afraid, that when everything is sold, there will hardly be
enough to satisfy the creditors. You know how honest and upright he is,
and how it will pain him if he thought these people would suffer loss
through any one belonging to him. He carries this romantic sense of
honesty so far, that Henry is afraid that he will give up his property
to pay these debts."
"He is so noble! How I honour him for it!" cried Dorothy. "How cruel it
was of me to blame him for neglect, when he was not only at the post of
duty, but suffering such anguish of mind. How cautious we should be in
judging the actions of others. I can scarcely forgive myself for
harbouring against him an unkind thought."
"And how is dear Mrs. Rushmere?" said her friend, anxious to turn the
conversation into another channel, when she saw the big, bright tears
that trembled on Dorothy's eyelids.
"She is fast sinking. We may not hope to keep her here much longer. I
read and pray with her whenever she is able to bear it. But, oh, dear
Mrs. Martin, my reading and praying is so different from his! I did so
long to see him and hear him again."
"Do not look so despondingly, Dorothy. You will soon see him again. In
the meanwhile, tell me about Gilbert, and how you met."
"As friends--nothing more. I might add, scarcely as friends. I am so
thankful that my heart was weaned from him months ago. I now marvel
at myself how I ever could have felt for him the passionate affection I
did, or how his desertion could plunge me into such intense grief."
Mrs. Martin pressed her hand warmly.
"I expected as much. And his wife?"
"Don't ask me what I think of her;" and Dorothy waved her hands
impatiently.
"Your silence is eloquent, Dorothy. And when can you come to me?"
"When dear mother no longer requires my services. At times she suffers
cruel agony, but she bears it with angelic patience. She will be
delighted to see you."
Dorothy led the way to the sick chamber. They found Mrs. Rushmere awake
and in a very happy frame of mind; she greeted Mrs. Martin with
unaffected pleasure, and talked cheerfully and hopefully of her
approaching end. She made no comment on her son's marriage, and
scarcely alluded to his wife, expressing great thankfulness that she had
been permitted to see Gilbert before she died.
"Dear Mrs. Martin," she said, "I need scarcely ask you to be kind to
Dorothy when she has no longer a mother to love and care for her, or a
home here in which she can live in peace. A loving daughter she has been
to me, a faithful and devoted nurse. The blessing she has been to me in
this cruel and loathsome illness, the good God who gave her to me alone
knows. That He may bless and reward her when I am in the clay is my
constant prayer. May she never want a friend in her hour o' need."
Mrs. Martin stooped and kissed the pale earnest face of the dying woman.
"God will raise her up friends, never fear. The good Father never
forsakes those who love and honour him."
Mrs. Rushmere threw her arms about her visitor's neck, and drew her
head down to the pillow, while she whispered in her ear, "Take her out
o' this, Mrs. Martin, as soon as I am gone. These strange women are
killing her with their hard, unfeeling ways. It is a'most breaking my
poor heart to see the dear child pining day by day."
"She will have her reward, my dear old friend, no one ever loses by
suffering in a good cause."
Mrs. Martin sat for some time with the invalid, and explained to her the
cause why Mr. Fitzmorris and her husband had not been up to see her, and
promised that Mr. Martin should visit her on the morrow. On inquiring of
Martha Wood for Mrs. Rowly and her daughter, she was not sorry to learn
that they had walked down to the village.
"In the humour I feel towards them," she said to Dorothy, "I would
rather that they made the acquaintance of my handwriting than of me."
It was Dorothy's practice to visit Mrs. Rushmere the first thing in the
morning, and carry her a cup of tea before the inmates of the house were
stirring. Mr. Rushmere slept in the same room with his wife, but, since
her illness, occupied a separate bed. As Dorothy unclosed the chamber
door, she was startled by a low, hoarse moaning, that seemed to proceed
from the bed of the invalid. Alarmed at such an unusual occurrence, she
hurried forward; the cup dropped from her hand, and, with a wild cry,
she flung herself upon the bed, and clasped in her arms the still, pale
figure that, for so many years, she had loved and honoured as her
mother.
Mr. Rushmere was kneeling upon the floor, his face buried in the
coverlid, holding in his trembling grasp the thin, white hand that no
longer responded to the pressure.
"Mother! dear, blessed mother!" sobbed Dorothy, "speak to me again. One
word, one little word. You must not leave me for ever without your love
and blessing!"
"Alas! my child, she cannot, death has silenced the kind voice for
ever," groaned the stricken old man. "My wife! my precious wife! I never
knew half your value until now. All that you were, and have been to me.
Oh speak to me, Mary, my lost darling, smile once more upon me as in the
happy days gone by. Say that you forgive your Larry for all that he has
said and done amiss. You were allers an angel of kindness to a stern
husband. I have been a hard man to you; but I loved you with my whole
heart, though I could not allers tell you how dear you were."
"She was quite sensible of your affection, dear father, and would grieve
to hear you reproach yourself; we have all our faults of temper. Mother
made every allowance for that. She knew how truly you loved her, that
your heart was in the right place. How did she die?"
The old man raised his head, and looked long and fondly on the still
calm face of his dead wife.
"Sleeping as you see her there, Dorothy, as sweet and peacefully as a
little child. The Lord bless her. She was surely one o' his gentle
lambs. She generally spoke to me when the sun rose, an' told me to call
up the folk to their work. About half an hour ago, I heard her own dear
voice call me three times. 'Larry, Larry, Larry! it be time for thee to
wake up out o' sleep. The Lord calls upon thee to rise. The night is far
spent, the morning is at hand in which thou must give to him an account
of the deeds done in the flesh.' I jump up, all in a cold sweat an'
cries out trembling all over with a deadly fear. 'Mary, did'st thee
call?' An awful stillness filled the room. No answer came. The sun
shone right upon the still pale face, an' told me all. It was a voice
from heaven that spoke, the dear angel had been dead for hours."
Again his heart sank upon the coverlid, and the strong frame shook with
the still stronger agony that mastered him. Dorothy thought it best to
leave nature to deal with him, who is ever the best physician and
comforter of the wounded heart, while she went to rouse the household,
and take necessary steps to perform the last sad offices for the dead.
In a few minutes all was hurry and alarm, as the suddenly aroused
inmates of the house rushed half-dressed into the chamber of death.
In vain Gilbert Rushmere tried to lead his father into another room; the
heartbroken old man resisted every effort to separate him from his
wife. The common-place condolences of Mrs. Rowly and her daughter were
alike unheeded. It was useless to tell him that it was a merciful
release from great suffering, that Mrs. Rushmere dying in her sleep had
been saved the pain and agony of a separation from her family, or that
she was now an angel in heaven.
The bereaved old man admitted all this; but looked upon her death, as
far as he was concerned, as the greatest calamity. A loss so terrible
and overwhelming, that he disdained to ask of heaven fortitude to bear
it, and he drove these Job's comforters out of his room, in the frenzy
of his great sorrow.
"Do not torture him," sobbed Dorothy, "with this cruel kindness. However
well meant, his mind is not in a state to bear it. Leave him alone with
his dead for one little hour, till nature softens his sorrow with the
holy balm of tears. The shock has been so sudden that his mind is
prostrated with the blow. He will recover himself when left alone with
the beloved. The silent eloquence of that sweet calm face will do more
to restore him to peace, than all we can say to reconcile him to his
loss."
"Oh, if she had only spoken to me before she died;" groaned Rushmere. "I
should not feel so bad. I could bear my misfortune like a man. If she
had only said in her soft kind voice. 'God bless you, Lawrence,' it
would ha' been something to think on, in the long lonesome nights
afore me; but she left me without a word. How can I sleep in peace in my
comfortable warm bed, knowing her to be alone in the cold earth. Oh,
Mary! my love, my treasure! How can I live a' wanting thee."
After a pause of some minutes, he looked up from the dead wife to his
son, who was leaning against the bed-post, his face covered with his
sole remaining hand.
"You may well mourn for your mother, Gilbert, many a salt tear she shed
for you. The grief she felt for your cruel desertion broke down her
constitution, and brought her to this."
"Father, I was not alone to blame," said Gilbert, in a hoarse voice.
"Yes--yes, lay the fault on the old man, he has no one now to take his
part, but that poor lass whose heart he nearly broke."
"Father," whispered Dorothy, gently taking his hand. "Mother forgot and
forgave that long ago. She loved you and Gilbert too well to cherish
animosity against either. We are all human and prone to err. If she
could speak, she would tell you to banish all these sinful
heart-burnings, these useless recriminations, and prepare to follow her
to the better land, where she has found peace and assurance for ever."
"I will, I will, if so be I could only find the way," responded
Rushmere, with a heavy sigh. "Oh, God forgive me! I am a sinful man. I
wish I could follow her dear steps, for I am a' weary o' my life."
He laid his head upon the pillow beside his wife, and the tears streamed
from his closed eyelids down his pale cheeks.
"Come, let us leave him," said Dorothy. "He will feel calmer soon. And
here is dear Mr. Martin, who can better soothe him in his grief than we
can. Oh, I am so glad you are come," she whispered to the good curate,
as she followed the rest of the family from the room. "He is dreadfully
afflicted. Poor old father, he loved her so much."
The four days that intervened between Mrs. Rushmere's death and the
funeral were very trying to Dorothy. She had to receive so many
visitors, and listen to so many unfeeling remarks and questions
regarding her future position in the Rushmere family, put to her with
the coarse bluntness of uneducated people, who could not realize her
grief for the loss of one who was not a blood relation. "Was she
going," they asked, "to remain at the farm, or to take service
elsewhere?" and they expressed great surprise that young Mrs. Rushmere
had suffered her to remain there so long. Then, she was asked to give
minute particulars regarding the terrible disease of which her
foster-mother had died; of how she bore her sufferings, what doctor she
employed, and what remedies had been applied? All this was trying enough
to a sensitive mind; but they went further still, and utterly regardless
of the wounds they were inflicting, demanded of the weeping girl, "If
Mrs. Rushmere had left her anything, and who was to get her clothes?"
This important piece of information, was urged by no less a personage
than Letty Barford, who in company with her mother-in-law and Miss
Watling, called to look at the corpse.
"I think Mrs. Rushmere has done enough for her," said Miss Watling as
they descended the stairs, "keeping her for so many years after all the
trouble she has made in the family."
This was not said in Dorothy's hearing, but addressed to Mrs. Gilbert
and her mother, to whom the party were offering their condolence.
"These interlopers are always a nuisance in families," said Mrs. Rowly.
"This Dorothy Chance is a good enough girl, but my daughter will be very
glad to get rid of her. It does not do to have two mistresses in a
house, and she has been used to have her own way in everything."
"It was but natural," suggested the elder Mrs. Barford. "She was more
than a daughter to them, and it must have been trying to Dorothy to give
up the place she had held for so many years, with such credit to
herself, to strangers. I pity her with all my heart; when does she
leave you Mrs. Gilbert?"
"As soon after the funeral as possible. It is only on the old man's
account that I allowed her to remain here so long. She is the only
creature in the house that can manage him, but it is high time that all
this should be put a stop to."
"You are perfectly right, Mrs. Gilbert," cried Miss Watling. "I think
you have shown great forbearance in tolerating the presence of such a
dangerous person in the house so long. While she was kept in her place
as servant of all work, it was all very well; but since the Earl has
taken her under his especial patronage, there is no bounds to her
assumption and insolence. Would you believe it, ladies, he is paying for
her education, and is actually having her taught to play upon the
piano."
"Strange, that we never heard a word of this before," cried both the
ladies in a breath. "Is she his mistress?"
"That's the inference which most people have drawn from such strange
conduct on his part," and Miss Watling shrugged her shoulders
significantly.
"I don't believe a word of it," cried the elder Mrs. Barford. "I heard
just now, that Dorothy was going to live with Mrs. Martin, and she is
too good a woman to tolerate such doings in her house."
"It is an easy thing for a man of Lord Wilton's rank and wealth to bribe
people to hold their tongues," sneered Miss Watling. "It is nothing to
me what she is, I shall never give my countenance to a person of
doubtful character, and one so every way my inferior. It is a good thing
for you, Mrs. Gilbert, that it has pleased God to take the old woman, or
this artful girl might make mischief between you and your husband."
"Oh ma'am, I have no fears on that head," replied Sophia tartly. "I am
not afraid of such a mischance. I saw very little of Mrs. Rushmere, and
considering the nature of her complaint, I think her death a happy
release; and if the old man were to follow his wife, it would not break
my heart--"
"Sophia, you should not speak your mind so freely," said her mother
shaking her head. "But indeed, ladies, my daughter has been treated with
so little respect by the whole family, that you must not wonder at her
indifference at the death of a mother-in-law, who hardly said a civil
thing to her since she came into the house. Of course it was the
interest of this girl, Chance, to set the old folk against us, in the
hope, which I have every reason to believe she entertained, that they
would leave her all their personal property."
"Has the old woman left her a legacy?" demanded Letty, with breathless
interest.
"Not a thing. Her sudden death prevented that. The old man wanted to
give her all his wife's clothes and some of the fine linen, which he
said belonged to Dorothy; but Sophia lifted up her voice against it, and
the creature refused to accept the least thing, when she found that she
could not get all."
"Just like such domestic sneaks," cried Miss Watling. "I am so glad she
was disappointed. It will serve as a warning to others like her."
Shaking hands with Mrs. Gilbert in the most affectionate manner, and
hoping that they would soon become excellent friends, Miss Watling and
the two Barfords took their leave, all but the elder of the twain,
delighted with Mrs. Rowly and her daughter, whom Miss Watling
pronounced, a very sweet, lady-like young person.
Until the morning appointed for the funeral, the poor old yeoman had
confined himself entirely to his own room, beside the coffin which
contained the mortal remains of his wife. On that morning, however, he
rose early; washed his pale, haggard face, and shaved himself, and put
on with unusual care, the mourning suit his son had provided for the
melancholy occasion. Kissing with reverence the cold brow of his wife,
he screwed down the lid of the coffin with his own hands, "that no one,"
he said, "should see her again, or rob him of that last look. It was now
time for him to gird up his loins and act like a man."
Dorothy hearing him stirring, brought up his breakfast, for he had
tasted nothing but bread and water for the last four days, and she knew
that he must be weak and faint from his long fast. She found him
standing behind the closed curtains of the window, looking mournfully
into the court below. At the sound of the light well known footsteps,
he turned to her and held out his hand. Dorothy threw her arms about his
neck, and for some minutes they mingled their tears together. At length,
rousing himself, Rushmere placed his large hand upon her bent head, and
solemnly blessed her.
"Dolly," he said, "Dolly, my dear child, had I only known the woman that
now fills the place in this house that you ought to have held, I would
ha' seen my right hand struck from my body afore I would ha' refused my
consent to your marriage with Gilbert. I ha' been punished, terribly
punished for my folly and sin, ever since yon deceitful woman came into
my house to lord it over me and mine. Night and day I hear Mary's voice,
repeating to me over an' over again, the words she said to me on that
sorrowful morn that Gilly first left his home, an' I turned you out
friendless upon the pitiless world. You, who I ought to ha' protected
to the last hour o' my life. 'Larry, as a man sows, so must he reap.'
Oh, my daughter, what sort o' a crop am I likely to reap with these
women when you be gone?"
"They will be kinder to you, father, when I am away."
"Not a bit, not a bit. It is not in their natur, child. People cannot
act agen natur. The only thing that reconciles me to my Mary's death,
is, that she will not have to put up with their evil tempers, and that
you, Dolly, will be removed from their malice."
"Dear father, don't vex your mind with anticipating troubles; they
always come soon enough without opening the door to call them in. Come
with me into the next room and eat a bit of breakfast. You have been
fasting too long, and look as weak as a child. I have cooked the steak
with my own hands that you might have it nice."
"Ay, Dolly, you wor allers a first-rate hand at making good cheer. Yon
Lunnon fine lady wu'd starve a body with her dirty ways."
"Don't think of her, father," said Dorothy, leading him by the hand like
a child into the adjoining room, where she had a small table neatly
spread, and his breakfast all ready. "You must do justice to my cooking.
It is the last meal your poor Dolly will ever cook for you in the old
house."
"Oh, that it wor the last a' would ever want to eat," sighed Rushmere,
wiping his eyes, and consenting to partake of the meal so temptingly
spread before him.
After moving the dishes, Dorothy entreated him to go down stairs, and
take a turn in the open air, to revive him after his confinement in the
close atmosphere of the death-chamber. But this the old man could not be
persuaded to do.
"I wu'd not ha' minded, Dorothy, had the day been wet." And he looked
sadly toward the window, where the gay sunbeams were glancing through
the closed white drapery, "but such a fine morn as this, wi' the birds
singing gaily, as if they never knew sorrow or care, an' the blessed
beams o' the young sun laughing in the glistening drops o' dew, an' all
things o' God's making, but man, looking so bright and cheery, just
maddens me wi' grief, to think that my Mary will never look upon this
beautiful world again. It doth seem grievous to the wounded heart, that
natur is allers happy; an' to-day I can't stand the smile on her
gladsome face; it wu'd comfort me to see it covered up in storm and
cloud. You know the old saying, Dolly, 'Happy is the corpse that the
rain rains on.'"
If there was any truth in the old rhyme, Lawrence Rushmere's wish was
gratified. The beautiful morning rapidly clouded over, and just as the
funeral procession left the house, the storm burst over the melancholy
train in awful thunder-claps, accompanied by floods of rain. Every one
was drenched and looked uncomfortable, but the chief mourner. He held up
his sad, pale face to the pitiless shower, as if its desolating progress
was in unison with his own sad heart; nor did the tempest abate its fury
until the sods were piled upon the narrow bed which separated him from
the love of his youth.