"Where?" inquired Mr. Adams; "she will not accept shelter in my house."
"I do not know," answered his niece, relapsing into all the helplessness of first grief; "indeed I do not know; her brother-in-law, Sir James Ashbroke, invited her to the Pleasaunce, but my brother objects to her going there, his uncle has behaved so neglectfully about his appointment."
"Foolish boy!" muttered Charles; "this is no time to quarrel about trifles. The fact is, Mary, that the sooner you are all out of this house the better; there are one or two creditors, not for large sums certainly, but still men who will have their money; and if we do not quietly sell off, they will force us. The house might have been disposed of last week by private contract, but your mother would not hear of it, because the person who offered was a medical rival of my poor brother."
Mary did not hear the concluding observation; her eyes wandered from object to object in the room--the harp--the various things known from childhood. "Any thing you and your mother wish, my dear niece,"
said her kind uncle, "shall be preserved--the family pictures--your harp--your piano--they are all hallowed memorials, and shall be kept sacred."
Mary burst into tears. "I do not," she said, "shrink from considering those instruments the means of my support; but although I know the necessity for so considering, I feel I cannot tell what at quitting the home of my childhood; people are all kind; you, my dear uncle, from whom we expected so little, the kindest of all; but I see, even in these early days of a first sorrow, indications of falling off. My aunt"s husband has really behaved very badly about the appointment of my eldest brother; and as to the cadetship for the second--we had such a brief dry letter from our Indian friend--so many first on the list, and the necessity for waiting, that I do not know how it will end."
"I wish, my dear, you could prevail on your mother, and sister, and all, to come to Repton," said Mr. Adams. "If your mother dislikes being in my house, I would find her a cottage near us; I will do all I can. My wife joins me in the determination to think that we have six additional children to look to. We differ from you in our habits; but our hearts and affections are no less true to you all. My Mary and you will be as sisters."
His niece could bear no more kindness. She had been far more bitterly disappointed than she had confessed even to her uncle; and yet the very bitterness of the disappointment had been the first thing that had driven her father"s dying wail from her ears--that cry repeated so often and so bitterly in the brief moments left after his accident--"My children! My children!" He had not sufficient faith to commit them to G.o.d"s mercy; he knew he had not been a faithful steward; and he could not bring himself from the depths of his spiritual blindness to call upon the Fountain that is never dried up to those who would humbly and earnestly partake of its living waters.
It was all a scene as of another world to the young, beautiful, petted, and feted girl; it had made her forget the disappointment of her love, at least for a time. While her brothers dared the thunder-cloud that burst above their heads, her mother and sisters wept beneath its influence. Mary had looked forth, and if she did not hope, she thought, and tried to pray; now, she fell weeping upon her uncle"s shoulder; when she could speak, she said, "Forgive me; in a little time I shall be able to conquer this; at present, I am overwhelmed; I feel as if knowledge and sorrow came together; I seem to have read more of human nature within the last three days than in all my past life."
"It all depends, Mary, upon the person you meet," said Mr. Adams, "as upon the book you read; if you choose a foolish book or a bad book, you can expect nothing but vice or foolishness; if you choose a foolish companion, surely you cannot expect kindness or strength." The kind-hearted man repeated to her all he had before said. "I cannot,"
he added, "be guilty of injustice to my children; but I can merge all my own luxuries into the one of being a father to the fatherless."
But to all the plans of Charles Adams, objections were raised by his eldest nephew and his mother; the youth could not brook the control of a simple straight-minded country man, whose only claim to be considered a gentleman, in his opinion, arose from his connexion with "his family." He was also indignant with his maternal uncle for his broken promise, and these feelings were strengthened by his mother"s folly. Two opportunities for disposing of the house and its magnificent furniture were missed; and when Mrs. Adams complained to her nearest and most influential connexions that her brother-in-law refused to make her any allowance unless she consented to live at Repton--expecting that they would be loud in their indignation at his hardness--they advised her by all means to do what he wished, as he was really the only person she had to depend upon. Others were lavish of their sympathy, but sympathy wears out quickly; others invited her to spend a month with them at their country-seat, for change of air; one hinted how valuable Miss Adams" exquisite musical talent would be _now_. Mary coloured, and said, "Yes," with the dignity of proper feeling; but her mother asked the lady what she meant, and a little scene followed, which caused the lady to visit all the families in town of her acquaintance, for the purpose of expressing her sympathy with "those poor dear Adamses, who were so proud, poor things, that really there was nothing hut starvation and the workhouse before them!" Another of those well-meaning persons--strong-minded and kind-hearted, but without a particle of delicacy--came to poor Mary, with all _prestige_ of conferring a favour.
"My dear young lady, it is the commonest thing in the world--very painful but very common; the families of professional men are frequently left without provision. Such a pity!--because, if they cannot save, they can insure. We _all_ can do _that_, but they do _not_ do it, and consequently everywhere the families of professional men are found in distress; so, as I said, it is common; and I wanted you to suggest to your mother, that, if she would not feel hurt at it, the thing being so common--dear Dr. Adams having been so popular, so very popular--that while every one is talking about him and you all, a very handsome subscription could be got up. I would begin it with a sum large enough to invite still larger. I had a great regard for him--I had indeed."
Mary felt her heart sink and rise, and her throat swell, so that she could not speak. She had brought herself to the determination of employing her talents for her own support, but she was not prepared to come with her family before the world as paupers. "We have no claim upon the public," she said at last. "I am sure you mean us kindly, but we have no claim. My dear father forwarded no public work--no public object; he gave his advice, and received his payment. If we are not provided for, it is no public fault. Besides, my father"s children are able and willing to support themselves. I am sure you mean us kindly, but we have no claim upon public sympathy, and an appeal to it would crush us to the earth. I am very glad you did not speak first to my mother. My uncle Charles would not suffer it, even suppose she wished it."
This friend also departed to excite new speculations as to the pride and poverty of "poor dear Dr. Adams"s family." In the world, however--the busy busy London world--it is idle to expect any thing to create even a nine days" wonder. When the house and furniture were at last offered for sale, the feeling was somewhat revived; and Mary, whose beauty, exquisite as it was, had so un.o.btrusive a character as never to have created a foe, was remembered with tears by many: even the father of her old lover, when he was congratulated by one more worldly-minded than himself on the escape of his son in not marrying a portionless girl, reproved the unfeeling speaker with a wish that he only hoped his son might have as good a wife as Mary Adams would have been.
CHAPTER V.
The bills were taken down, the house purified from the auction-mob--every thing changed; a new name occupied the doctor"s place in the "Court Guide"--and in three months the family seemed as completely forgotten amongst those of whom they once formed a prominent part, as if they had never existed. When one sphere of life closes against a family, they find room in another. Many kind-hearted persons in Mrs. Adams"s first circle would have been rejoiced to be of service to her and hers, but they were exactly the people upon whom she had no claim. Of a high but poor family, her relatives had little power. What family so situated ever had any influence beyond what they absolutely needed for themselves? With an ill grace she at last acceded to the kind offer made by Mr. Charles Adams, and took possession of the cottage he fixed upon, until something could be done for his brother"s children. In a fit of proud despair the eldest son enlisted into a regiment of dragoons; the second was fortunate enough to obtain a cadetship through a stranger"s interference; and his uncle thought it might be possible to get the youngest forward in his father"s profession. The expense of the necessary arrangements was severely felt by the prudent and careful country gentleman. The younger girls were too delicate for even the common occupations of daily life; and Mary, instead of receiving the welcome she had been led to expect from her aunt and cousins, felt that every hour she spent at the Grange was an intrusion.
The sudden death of Dr. Adams had postponed the intended wedding of Charles Adams"s eldest daughter; and although her mother agreed that it was their duty to forward the orphan children, she certainly felt, as most affectionate mothers whose hearts are not very much enlarged would feel, that much of their own savings--much of the produce of her husband"s hard labour--labour during a series of years when her sister-in-law and her children were enjoying all the luxuries of life--would now be expended for their support; this to an all-sacrificing mother, despite _her sense of the duty of kindness_, was hard to bear. As long as they were not on the spot, she theorised continually, and derived much satisfaction from the sympathising observations of her neighbours, and was proud, _very_ proud, of the praise bestowed upon her husband"s benevolence; but when her sister-in-law"s expensive habits were in daily array before her (the cottage being close to the Grange,) when she knew, to use her own expression, "that she never put her hand to a single thing;" that she could not live without port wine, when she herself never drank even gooseberry, except on Sundays; never ironed a collar, never dusted the chimney-piece, or ate a shoulder of mutton--roast one day, cold the next, and hashed the third. While each day brought some fresh ill.u.s.tration of her thoughtlessness to the eyes of the wife of the wealthy tiller of the soil, the widow of the physician thought herself in the daily practice of the most rigid self-denial. "I am sure,"
was her constant observation to her all-patient daughter--"I am sure I never thought it would come to this. I had not an idea of going through so much. I wonder your uncle and his wife can permit me to live in the way I do--they ought to consider how I was brought up."
It was in vain Mary represented that they were existing upon charity; that they ought to be most grateful for what they received, coming as it did from those who, in their days of prosperity, professed nothing, while those who professed all things had done nothing. Mary would so reason, and then retire to her own chamber to weep alone over things more hard to bear.
It is painful to observe what bitterness will creep into the heart and manner of really kind girls where a lover is in the case, or even where a common-place dangling sort of flirtation is going forward; this depreciating ill nature, one of the other, is not confined by any means to the fair s.e.x. Young men pick each other to pieces with even more fierceness, but less ingenuity; they deal in a cut-and-hack sort of sarcasm, and do not hesitate to use terms and insinuations of the harshest kind, when a lady is in the case. Mary (to distinguish her from her high-bred cousin, she was generally called Mary Charles) was certainly disappointed when her wedding was postponed in consequence of her uncle"s death; but a much more painful feeling followed, when she saw the admiration her lover, Edwin Lechmere, bestowed upon her beautiful cousin. Mary Charles was herself a beauty--fair, open-eyed, warm-hearted--_the_ beauty of Repton; but though feature by feature, inch by inch, she was as handsome as Mary, yet in her cousin was the grace and spirit given only by good society; the manners elevated by a higher mind, and toned down by sorrow; a gentle softness, which a keen observer of human nature told me once no woman ever possessed unless she had deeply loved, and suffered from disappointed affection; in short, she was far more refined, far more fascinating, than her country cousin: besides, she was unfortunate, and that at once gave her a hold upon the sympathies of the young curate: it did no more: but Mary Charles did not understand these nice distinctions, and nothing could exceed the change of manner she evinced when her cousin and her betrothed were together.
Mary thought her cousin rude and petulant; but the true cause of the change never occurred to her. Accustomed to the high-toned courtesy of well-bred men, which is so little practised in the middle cla.s.s of English society, it never suggested itself, that placing her chair, or opening the door for her to go out, or rising courteously when she came into a room, was more than, as a lady, she had a right to expect; in truth, she did not notice it at all; but she did notice and feel deeply her cousin"s alternate coldness and snappishness of manner. "I would not," thought Mary, "have behaved so to her if she had been left desolate; but in a little time, when my mother is more content, I will leave Repton, and become independent by my talents." Never did she think of the power delegated to her by, the Almighty without feeling herself raised--ay, higher than she had ever been in the days of her splendour--in the scale of moral usefulness; as every one must feel whose mind is rightly framed. She had not yet known what it was to have her abilities trampled on or insulted; she had never experienced the bitterness consequent upon having the acquirements--which in the days of her prosperity commanded silence and admiration--sneered at or openly ridiculed.--She had yet to learn that the Solons, the law-givers of English society, lavish their attentions and praise upon those who learn, not upon those who teach.
Mary had not been six months fatherless, when she was astonished, first by a letter, and then by a visit, from her former lover; he came to renew his engagement, and to wed her even then if she would have him; but Mary"s high principle was stronger than he imagined. "No,"
she said, "you are not independent of your father, and whatever I feel, I have no right to draw _you_ down into poverty. You may fancy now that you could bear it; but a time would come--if not to you, to me--when the utter selfishness of such conduct would goad me to a death of early misery." The young man appealed to her uncle, who thought her feelings overstrained, but respected her for it nevertheless; and in the warmth of his admiration, he communicated the circ.u.mstance to his wife and daughter.
"Refuse her old lover under present circ.u.mstances," repeated her cousin to herself as she left the room; "there must be some other reason than that; she could not be so foolish as to reject such an offer at such a time." Unfortunately, she saw Edwin Lechmere walking by Mary"s side, under the shadow of some trees. She watched them until the foliage screened them from her sight, and then she shut herself into her own room, and yielded to a long and violent burst of tears.
"It is not enough," she exclaimed, in the bitterness of her feelings, "that the comforts of my parents" declining years should be abridged by the overwhelming burden to their exertions--another family added to their own; it is not enough that an uncomfortable feeling has grown between my father and mother on this account, and that cold looks and sharp words have come where they never came before, but my peace of mind must be destroyed. Gladly would I have taken a smaller portion, if I could have kept the affections which I see but too plainly my cousin has stolen from me. And my thoughtless aunt to say, only yesterday, that "at all events her husband was no man"s enemy but his own." Has not his want of prudent forethought been the ruin of his own children? and will my parents ever recover the anxiety, the pain, the sacrifices, brought on by one man"s culpable neglect? Oh, uncle! if you could look from your grave upon the misery you have caused!"--and then, exhausted by her own emotion, the affectionate but jealous girl began to question herself as to what she should do. After what she considered mature deliberation, she made up her mind to upbraid her cousin with treachery, and she put her design into execution that same evening.
It was no easy matter to oblige her cousin to understand what she meant; but at last the declaration that she had refused her old lover because she had placed her affections upon Edwin Lechmere, whom she was endeavouring to "entrap," was not to be mistaken; and the country girl was altogether unprepared for the burst of indignant feeling, mingled with much bitterness, which repelled the untruth. A strong fit of hysterics, into which Mary Charles worked herself, was terminated by a scene of the most painful kind, her father being upbraided by her mother with "loving other people"s children better than his own,"
while the curate himself knelt by the side of his betrothed, a.s.suring her of his unaltered affection. From such a scene Miss Adams hastened with a throbbing brow and a bursting heart. She had no one to counsel or console her; no one to whom she could apply for aid. For the first time since she had experienced her uncle"s tenderness, she felt she had been the means of disturbing his domestic peace; the knowledge of the burden she and hers were considered, weighed her to the earth; and in a paroxysm of anguish she fell on her knees, exclaiming, "Oh, why are the dependent born into the world! Father, father, why did you leave us, whom you so loved, to such a fate!" And then she reproached herself for having uttered a word reflecting on his memory. One of the every-day occurrences of life--so common as to be hardly observed--is to find really kind, good-natured people not "weary of well-doing."
"Oh, really I was worn out with so-and-so; they are so decidedly unfortunate that it is impossible to help them," is a general excuse for deserting those whose continuing misfortunes ought to render them greater objects of sympathy.
Mr. Charles Adams was, as has been shown in our little narrative, a kind-hearted man. Estranged as his brother and himself had been for a number of years, he had done much to forward, and still more to protect, his children. At first, this was a pleasure; but somehow his "benevolence," and "kindness," and "generosity," had been so talked about, so eulogised, and he had been so seriously inconvenienced by the waywardness of his nephews, the thoughtless pride of his sister-in-law, the helplessness of his younger nieces, as to feel seriously oppressed by his responsibility. And now the one who had never given him aught but pleasure, seemed, according to his daughter"s representations, to be the cause of increased sorrow, the destroyer of his dear child"s happiness. What to do he could not tell.
His daughter, wrought upon by her own jealousy, had evinced, under its influence, so much temper she had never displayed before, that it seemed more than likely the cherished match would be broken off. His high-minded niece saved him any farther anxiety as far as she was concerned. She sent for and convinced him fully and entirely of her total freedom from the base design imputed to her. "Was it likely,"
she said, "that I should reject the man I love lest I should drag him into poverty, and plunge at once with one I do not care for into the abyss I dread? This is the common sense view of the case; but there is yet another. Is it to be borne that I would seek to rob _your_ child of her happiness? The supposition is an insult too gross to be endured. I will leave my mother to-morrow. An old school-fellow, older and more fortunate than myself, wished me to educate her little girl.
I had one or two strong objections to living in her house; but the desire to be independent and away has overcome them." She then, with many tears, entreated her uncle still to protect her mother; urged how she had been sorely tried; and communicated fears, she had reason to believe were too well founded, that her eldest brother, feeling the reverse more than he could bear, had deserted from his regiment.
Charles Adams was deeply moved by the n.o.bleness of his niece, and reproved his daughter more harshly than he had ever done before, for the feebleness that created so strong and unjust a pa.s.sion. This had the contrary effect to what he had hoped for: she did not hesitate to say that her cousin had endeavoured to rob her both of the affection of her lover and her father. The injured cousin left Repton bowed beneath an acc.u.mulation of troubles, not one of which was of her own creating, not one of which she deserved; and all springing from the unproviding nature of him who, had he been asked the question, would have declared himself ready to sacrifice his own life for the advantage of that daughter, now compelled to work for her own bread.
To trace the career of Mary Adams in her new calling, would be to repeat what I have said before. The more refined, the more informed the governess, the more she suffers. Being with one whom she had known in better days, made it even more hard to bend; yet she did her duty, and _that_ is one of the highest privileges a woman can enjoy.
CHAPTER VI.
Leaving Mary for a moment, let us return to Repton. Here discord, having once entered, was making sad ravages, and all were suffering from it. It was but too true that the eldest of the Adamses had deserted; his mother clinging with a parent"s fondness to her child, concealed him, and thus offended Charles Adams beyond all reconciliation. The third lad, who was walking the London hospitals, and exerting himself beyond his strength, was everything that a youth could be; but his declining health was represented to his uncle, by one of those whom his mother"s pride had insulted, as a cloak for indolence. In short, before another year had quite pa.s.sed, the family of the once rich and fashionable Dr. Adams had shared the fate of all dependents--worn out the benevolence, or patience, or whatever it really is, of their "best friends." Nor was this the only consequence of the physician"s neglect of a duty due alike to G.o.d and society; his brother had really done so much for the bereaved family, as to give what the world called "just grounds" to Mrs. Charles Adams"s repeated complaints, "that now her husband was ruining his industrious family to keep the lazy widow of his spend-thrift brother and her favourite children in idleness. Why could she not live upon the "fine folk"
she was always throwing in her face?" The daughter, too, of whose approaching union the fond father had been so proud, was now, like her cousin whom she had wronged by her mean suspicions, deserted; the match broken off after much bickering; one quarrel having brought on another, until they separated by mutual consent. Her temper and her health were both materially impaired; and her beauty was converted into hardness and acidity.
Oh! how utterly groundless is the idea, that in our social state, where one human being must so much depend upon another, any man, neglecting his positive duties, can be called only "his own enemy."
What misery had not Dr. Adams"s neglect entailed, not alone on his immediate family, but on that of his brother. Besides, there were ramifications of distress; he died even more embarra.s.sed than his brother had at first believed, and some trades-people were consequently embarra.s.sed; but the deep misery fell upon his children.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Dr. Adams had left Repton with her younger children, to be the dependants of Mary in London.
It was not until a fatal disease had seized upon her mother, that Mary ventured to appeal again to her uncle"s generosity. "My second brother," she said, "has out of his small means remitted her five pounds. My eldest brother seems altogether to have disappeared from amongst us; finding that his unhappy presence had occasioned so fatal a separation between his mother and you--a disunion which I saw was the effect of many small causes, rather than one great one--he left us, and we cannot trace him. This has broken my poor mother"s heart; he was the cherished one of all her children. My youngest brother has been for the last month an inmate of one of the hospitals which my poor father attended for so many years, and where his word was law. My sister Rosa, she upon whom my poor father poured, if possible, more of his affection than he bestowed upon me--my lovely sister, of whom, even in our poverty, I was so proud--so young, only upon the verge of womanhood--has, you already know, left us. Would to G.o.d it had been for her grave, rather than her destroyer!--a fellow-student of that poor youth, who, if he dreamt of her dishonour, would stagger like a spectre from what will be his death-bed to avenge her. Poverty is one of the surest guides to dishonour; those who have not been tempted know nothing of it. It is one thing to see it, another to feel it.
Do not think her altogether base, because she had not the strength of a heroine. I have been obliged to resign my situation to attend my mother, and the only income we have is what I earn by giving lessons on the harp and piano. I give, for _two shillings_, the same instruction for which my father paid half a guinea a lesson; if I did not I should have no pupils. It is more than a month since my mother left her bed; and my youngest sister, bending beneath increased delicacy of health, is her only attendant. I know her mind to be so tortured, and her body so convulsed by pain, that I have prayed to G.o.d to render her fit for Heaven, and take her from her sufferings.
Imagine the weight of sorrow that crushed me to my knees with such a pet.i.tion as that. I know all you have done, and yet I ask you now, in remembrance of the boyish love that bound you and my father together, to lessen her bodily anguish by the sacrifice of a little more; that she, nursed in the lap of luxury, may not pa.s.s from life with starvation as her companion. My brother"s gift is expended; and during the last three weeks I have earned but twelve shillings; my pupils are out of town. Do, for a moment remember what I was, and think how humbled I must be to frame this supplication; but it is a child that pet.i.tions for a parent, and I know I have never forfeited your esteem.
In a few weeks, perhaps in a few days, my brother and my mother will meet my poor father face to face. Oh! that I could be a.s.sured that reproach and bitterness for the past do not pa.s.s the portals of the grave. Forgive me this, as you have already forgiven me much. Alas! I know too well that our misfortunes drew misfortunes upon others. I was the unhappy but innocent cause of much sorrow at the Grange; but, oh!
do not refuse the _last_ request that I will ever make." The letter was blotted by tears.
Charles Adams was from home when it arrived, and his wife, knowing the handwriting, and having made a resolution never to open a letter "from that branch of the family," did not send it after her husband "lest it might tease him." Ten days elapsed before he received it; and when he did, he could not be content with writing, but lost not a moment in hastening to the address. Irritated and disappointed that what he really had done should have been so little appreciated, when every hour of his life he was smarting in one way or other from his exertions--broken-hearted at his daughter"s blighted health and happiness--angered by the reckless wildness of one nephew, and what he believed was the idleness of another--and convinced that Rosa"s fearful step was owing to the pampering and mismanagement of her foolish mother--Charles Adams satisfied himself that, as he did not hear to the contrary from Mary, all things were going on well, or at least not ill. He thought as little about them as he possibly could, no people in the world being so conveniently forgotten (when they are not importunate) as poor relations; but the letter of his favourite niece spoke strongly to his heart, and in two hours after his return home he set forth for the London suburb from whence the letter was dated. It so chanced, that to get to that particular end of the town, he was obliged to pa.s.s the house his brother had occupied so splendidly for a number of years; the servants had lit the lamps, and were drawing the curtains of the n.o.ble dining-room; and a party of ladies were descending from a carriage, which prevented two others from setting down. It looked like old times. "Some one else," thought Charles Adams, "running the same career of wealth and extravagance.
G.o.d grant it may not lead to the same results!" He paused, and looked up the front of the n.o.ble mansion; the drawing-room windows were open, and two beautiful children were standing on an ottoman placed between the windows, probably to keep them apart. He thought of Mary"s childhood, and how she was occupied at that moment, and hastened onward. There are times when life seems one mingled dream, and it is not easy to become dispossessed of the idea when some of its frightful changes are brought almost together under our view.
"Is Miss Adams at home?" inquired her uncle of a woman leaning against the door of a miserable house.
"I don"t know; she went to the hospital this morning; but I"m not sure she"s in; it"s the second pair back; it"s easy known, for the sob has not ceased in that room these two nights; some people do take on so"--
Charles Adams did not hear the concluding sentence, but sought the room; the door would not close, and he heard a low sobbing sound from within; he paused, but his step had aroused the mourner--"Come in, Mary; come in; I know how it is," said a young voice; "he is dead; one grave for mother and son--one grave for mother and son! I see your shadow, dark as it is; have you brought a candle? It is very fearful to be alone with the dead--even one"s own mother--in the dark."
Charles Adams entered the room; but his sudden appearance in the twilight, and evidently not knowing him, overcame the girl, his youngest niece, so much, that she screamed, and fell on her knees by her mother"s corpse. He called for lights, and was speedily obeyed, for he put a piece of gold in the woman"s hand. She turned it over, and as she hastened from the room, muttered, "If this had come sooner, she"d not have died of starvation or burdened the parish for a shroud; it"s hard the rich can"t look to their own."
When Mary returned, she was fearfully calm. "No, her brother was not dead," she said; "the young were longer dying than those whom the world had worn out; the young knew so little of the world, they thought it hard to leave it;" and she took off her bonnet, and sat down; and while her uncle explained why he had not written, she looked at him with eyes so fixed and cold, that he paused, hoping she would speak, so painful was their stony expression; but she let him go on, without offering one word of a.s.surance of any kind feeling or remembrance; and when she stooped to adjust a portion of the coa.r.s.e plaiting of the shroud--that mockery of "the purple and fine linen of living days"--her uncle saw that her hair, her luxuriant hair, was striped with white.
"There is no need for words now," she said at last; "no need. I thought you would have sent; she required but little--but very little; the dust rubbed from the gold she once had would have been riches: but the little she did require she had not, and so she died; but what weighs heaviest upon my mind was her calling so continually on my father, to know _why_ he had deserted her: she attached no blame latterly to any one, only called day and night upon him. Oh! it was hard to bear--it was very hard to bear."
"I will send a proper person in the morning to arrange that she may be placed with my brother," said Charles.
Mary shrieked almost with the wildness of a maniac. "No, no; as far from him as possible! Oh! not with him! She was to blame in our days of splendour as much as he was; but she could not see it; and I durst not reason with her. Not with him! _She would disturb him in his grave!_"