Pencil Sketches; or, Outlines of Character and Manners

by Eliza Leslie

"Ah!" returned Mrs. Allerton, "I know not when they can be paid. But we will strain every nerve to do it as soon as possible. I cannot bear the idea of remaining in debt for this mourning."

Their business being accomplished, the shop-boys departed, and Miss Facings made her preparations for cutting out the dresses, taking an opportunity of assuring the weeping girls that nothing was more becoming to the figure than black bombazine, and that everybody looked their best in a new suit of mourning.

At this juncture, Constance returned to the room, and was extremely sorry to find that the fear of singularity, and the officious perseverance of Mrs. Bladen, had superseded the better sense of her sister-in-law. But as the evil was now past remedy, our heroine, according to her usual practice, refrained from any further animadversions on the subject.

Little Louisa was now brought in to be fitted: and when her frock was cut out, Constance offered to make it herself, on hearing Miss Facings declare that she would be obliged to keep her girls up all night to complete the dresses by the appointed time, as they had already more work in the house than they could possibly accomplish.

Mrs. Allerton expressed great unwillingness to allowing her sister-in-law to take the trouble of making Louisa's dress. But Constance whispered to her that she had always found occupation to be one of the best medicines for an afflicted mind, and that it would in some degree prevent her thoughts from dwelling incessantly on the same melancholy subject. Taking Louisa with her, she retired to her own apartment, and the frock was completed by next day: though the overflowing eyes of poor Constance frequently obliged her to lay down her sewing. In reality, her chief motive in proposing to make the dress, was to save the expense of having it done by the mantua-maker.

Miss Facings took Mrs. Allerton's gown home with her, saying she would send one of her girls for the two others; and Mrs. Bladen then began to plan the bonnets and shawls. She went off to a fashionable milliner, and engaged a mourning bonnet and four mourning caps for Mrs. Allerton, and a bonnet for each of her daughters. And she was going back and forwards nearly all day with specimens of black cloth for the shawls, black stockings, black gloves, &c.

The girls, at their aunt's suggestion, hemmed the crape veils, and on the following morning, she assisted them in making and trimming the shawls. Still, Constance was well convinced that the expense of the mourning (including the suit bespoken for Frederick) would be greater than they could possibly afford. The cost of the funeral she intended to defray from her own funds, and she took occasion to request Mr. Denman to have nothing about it that should be unnecessarily expensive.

The hour arrived when the sorrowing family of Mr. Allerton were to be parted for ever from all that remained of the husband, the father, and the brother. They had taken the last look of his fixed and lifeless features, they had imprinted the last kiss on his cold and pallid lips; and from the chamber of death, they had to adjourn to the incongruous task of attiring themselves in their mourning habits to appear at his funeral. How bitterly they wept as their friends assisted them in putting on their new dresses; and when they tied on their bonnets and their long veils, to follow to his grave the object of their fondest affection!

Constance, with an almost breaking heart, sat in her chamber, and little Louisa hung crying on her shoulder, declaring that she could not see her dear father buried. But Mrs. Bladen came in, protesting that all the children must be present, and that people would talk if even the youngest child was to stay away. Mrs. Bladen then put on Louisa's mourning dress almost by force. When this was done, the little girl threw her arms round the neck of her aunt and kissed her, saying with a burst of tears, "When I see you again, my dear dear father will be covered up in his grave." Mrs. Bladen then led, or rather dragged the child to the room in which the family were assembled.

Constance threw herself on her bed in a paroxysm of grief. She heard the slow tread of the company as they came in, and she fancied that she could distinguish the sound of the lid as it was laid on the coffin, and the fastening of the screws that closed it for ever. She knew when it was carried down stairs, and she listened in sympathetic agony to the sobs of the family as they descended after it. She heard the shutting of the hearse-door, and the gloomy vehicle slowly rolling off to give place to the carriages of the mourners. She started up, and casting her eyes towards an opening in the window-curtain, she saw Mr. Denman supporting to the first coach the tottering steps of her half-fainting sister-in-law. She looked no longer, but sunk back on the bed and hid her face on the pillow. By all that she suffered when indulging her grief alone and in the retirement of her chamber, she felt how dreadful it would have been to her, had she accompanied the corpse of her brother to its final resting-place.