“To think what marvels o’ happiness be in store for us, Clem, my awn!”
“Yes—not more than we deserve, either. God knows, if there ’s any justice, it was your turn and mine to come by a little of the happiness that falls to the lot of men and women.”
“I doan’t see how highest heaven’s gwaine to be better than our married life, so long as you love me.”
“Heaven! Don’t compare them. What’s eternity if you’re half a ghost, half a bird? That’s the bribe thrown out,—to be a cold-blooded, perfect thing, and passionless as a musical box. Give me hot blood that flows and throbs; give me love, and a woman’s breast to lean on. One great day on earth, such as this has been, is better than a million ages of sexless perfection in heaven. A vain reward it was that Christ offered. It seemed highest perfection to Him, doubtless; but He judged the world by Himself. The Camel-driver was wiser. He promised actual, healthy flesh in paradise—flesh that should never know an ache or pain—eternal flesh, and the joys of it. We can understand that, but where’s the joy of being a spirit? I cling to the flesh I have, for I know that Nature will very soon want back the dust she has lent me.”
CHAPTER XIII
THE WILL
Agreeably to the prediction of Doctor Parsons, Mrs. Lezzard’s journey was ended in less than three weeks of her conversation with Clement Hicks. Then came a night when she made an ugly end; and with morning a group of gossips stood about the drawn blinds, licked their lips over the details, and generally derived that satisfaction from death common to their class. Indeed, this ghoulish gusto is not restricted to humble folk alone. The instinct lies somewhere at the root of human nature, together with many another morbid vein and trait not readily to be analysed or understood. Only educated persons conceal it.
“She had deliriums just at the end,” said Martha, her maid. “She called out in a voice as I never heard afore, an’ mistook her husband for the Dowl.”
“Poor sawl! Death’s such a struggle at the finish for the full-blooded kind. Doctor tawld me that if she’d had the leastest bit o’liver left, he could ’a’ saved her; but ’twas all soaked up by neat brandy, leaving nought but a vacuum or some such fatal thing.”
“Her hadn’t the use of her innards for a full fortnight! Think o’ that! Aw. dallybuttons! It do make me cream all awver to hear tell of!”
So they piled horror upon horror; then came Clement Hicks, as one having authority, and bade them begone. The ill-omened fowls hopped off; relations began to collect; there was an atmosphere of suppressed electricity about the place, and certain women openly criticised the prominent attitude Hicks saw fit to assume. This, however, did not trouble him. He wrote to the lawyer at Newton, fixed a day for the funeral, and then turned his attention to Mr. Lezzard. The ancient resented Clement’s interference not a little, but Hicks speedily convinced him that his animosity mattered nothing. The bee-keeper found this little taste of power not unpleasant. He knew that everything was his own property, and he enjoyed the hate and suspicion in the eyes of those about him. The hungry crowd haunted him, but he refused it any information. Mr. Lezzard picked a quarrel, but he speedily silenced the old man, and told him frankly that upon his good behaviour must depend his future position. Crushed and mystified, the widower whispered to those interested with himself in his wife’s estate; and so, before the reading of the will, there slowly grew a very deep suspicion and hearty hatred of Clement Hicks. None had considered him in connection with Mrs. Lezzard’s fortune, for he always kept aloof from her; but women cannot easily shut their lips over such tremendous matters of news, and so it came about that some whisper from Chris or dark utterance from old Mrs. Hicks got wind, and a rumour grew that the bee-keeper was the dead woman’s heir.