A LADY DESCRIBED WHOSE SINGLE LIFE WAS NO BLESSEDNESS EITHER TO
HERSELF OR OTHERS. A VERACIOUS EPITAPH AND AN APPROPRIATE MONUMENT.
Beauty! my Lord,—'tis the worst part of woman!
A weak poor thing, assaulted every hour
By creeping minutes of defacing time;
A superficies which each breath of care
Blasts off; and every humorous stream of grief
Which flows from forth these fountains of our eyes,
Washeth away, as rain doth winter's snow.
GOFF.
Miss Trewbody behaved with perfect propriety upon the news of her
sister's death. She closed her front windows for two days; received no
visitors for a week; was much indisposed, but resigned to the will of
Providence, in reply to messages of condolence; put her servants in
mourning, and sent for Margaret that she might do her duty to her
sister's child by breeding her up under her own eye. Poor Margaret was
transferred from the stone floor of her mother's cottage to the Turkey
carpet of her aunt's parlour. She was too young to comprehend at once
the whole evil of the exchange; but she learned to feel and understand
it during years of bitter dependence, unalleviated by any hope, except
that of one day seeing Leonard, the only creature on earth whom she
remembered with affection.
Seven years elapsed, and during all those years Leonard was left to
pass his holidays, summer and winter, at the grammar school where he
had been placed at Mrs. Palmer's death: for although the master
regularly transmitted with his half-yearly bill the most favourable
accounts of his disposition and general conduct, as well as of his
progress in learning, no wish to see the boy had ever arisen in the
hearts of his nearest relations; and no feeling of kindness, or sense
of decent humanity had ever induced either the foxhunter Trewman or
Melicent his sister to invite him for Midsummer or Christmas. At
length in the seventh year a letter announced that his
school-education had been completed, and that he was elected to a
scholarship at —— College, Oxford, which scholarship would entitle him
to a fellowship in due course of time; in the intervening years some
little assistance from his _liberal benefactors_ would be required;
and the liberality of those _kind friends_ would be well bestowed upon
a youth who bade so fair to do honour to himself, and to reflect _no
disgrace upon his honourable connections_. The head of the family
promised his part with an ungracious expression of satisfaction at
thinking that “thank God there would soon be an end of these demands
upon him.” Miss Trewbody signified her assent in the same amiable and
religious spirit. However much her sister had disgraced her family,
she replied, “please God it should never be said that she refused to
do her duty.”
The whole sum which these wealthy relations contributed was not very
heavy,—an annual ten pounds each: but they contrived to make their
nephew feel the weight of every separate portion. The Squire's half
came always with a brief note desiring that the receipt of the
enclosed sum might be acknowledged without delay,—not a word of
kindness or courtesy accompanied it: and Miss Trewbody never failed to
administer with her remittance a few edifying remarks upon the folly
of his mother in marrying beneath herself; and the improper conduct of
his father in connecting himself with a woman of family, against the
consent of her relations, the consequence of which was that he had
left a child dependant upon those relations for support. Leonard
received these pleasant preparations of charity only at distant
intervals, when he regularly expected them, with his half-yearly
allowance. But Margaret meantime was dieted upon the food of
bitterness without one circumstance to relieve the misery of her
situation.
At the time, of which I am now speaking, Miss Trewbody was a maiden
lady of forty-seven, in the highest state of preservation. The whole
business of her life had been to take care of a fine person, and in
this she had succeeded admirably. Her library consisted of two books;
Nelson's Festivals and Fasts was one, the other was “the Queen's
Cabinet unlocked;” and there was not a cosmetic in the latter which
she had not faithfully prepared. Thus by means, as she believed, of
distilled waters of various kinds, May-dew and butter-milk, her skin
retained its beautiful texture still, and much of its smoothness; and
she knew at times how to give it the appearance of that brilliancy
which it had lost. But that was a profound secret. Miss Trewbody,
remembering the example of Jezebel, always felt conscious that she was
committing a sin when she took the rouge-box in her hand, and
generally ejaculated in a low voice, the Lord forgive me! when she
laid it down: but looking in the glass at the same time, she indulged
a hope that the nature of the temptation might be considered as an
excuse for the transgression. Her other great business was to observe
with the utmost precision all the punctilios of her situation in life;
and the time which was not devoted to one or other of these worthy
occupations, was employed in scolding her servants, and tormenting her
niece. This employment, for it was so habitual that it deserved that
name, agreed excellently with her constitution. She was troubled with
no acrid humours, no fits of bile, no diseases of the spleen, no
vapours or hysterics. The morbid matter was all collected in her
temper, and found a regular vent at her tongue. This kept the lungs in
vigorous health. Nay it even seemed to supply the place of wholesome
exercise, and to stimulate the system like a perpetual blister, with
this peculiar advantage, that instead of an inconvenience it was a
pleasure to herself, and all the annoyance was to her dependants.
Miss Trewbody lies buried in the Cathedral at Salisbury, where a
monument was erected to her memory worthy of remembrance itself for
its appropriate inscription and accompaniments. The epitaph recorded
her as a woman eminently pious, virtuous and charitable, who lived
universally respected, and died sincerely lamented by all who had the
happiness of knowing her. This inscription was upon a marble shield
supported by two Cupids, who bent their heads over the edge, with
marble tears larger than grey pease, and something of the same colour,
upon their cheeks. These were the only tears which her death
occasioned, and the only Cupids with whom she had ever any concern.