Shot and shell were flying rather thickly, and seeing no chance of planting her flag on Leah's bulwarks, Lady Richardson beat a discreet retreat, with Judas kisses and Parthian shots. "So glad if I have cheered you up, dear [kiss]! Bear up and don't break your heart [kiss, kiss]! So sweet your sorrow, and so genuine [kiss, kiss, kiss]!" And having given several Rowlands for one Oliver, Lady Richardson departed.
"Cat!" said Lady Jim to the closed door, and settled to munch Billy's chocolates over Marcel Prévost's Lettres d'une Femme.
[ CHAPTER XX]
The supposed remains of Jim Kaimes duly arrived on British ground in charge of an extraordinarily anxious medical attendant, and Lord Frith arranged for their transfer to Firmingham. There, Leah was already established as Niobe, studiously dismal in the jet-trimmed, crape-flounced equivalent of sackcloth. With the Marchioness, a few decayed cousins, and many hired mourners, connected closely or distantly with the family, she assisted the Duke to lament his Absalom. Therefore, behind lowered blinds, in the twilight atmosphere of the great house, did officially grief-stricken relations move warily on tiptoe, speaking in hushed voices, with downcast eyes, of the deceased and his post-mortem virtues. The apotheosis of the prodigal son, who had thus quietly come home, made the place about as cheerful as a mausoleum.
Limiting the solemnity strictly to the family, Lionel was requested to inter Jim's body, with the rites in which Jim's soul had never believed. Then, for the first time, did he behold Leah in her new character, as hitherto a sympathetic letter had excused a personal interview. Now, face to face, Kaimes considered the advisability, as clergyman, relative, and friend, to administer presumably needed consolation. This last straw broke the widow's overladen back. She had wept with Pentland, mourned with kith and kin, enduring also, for three dreary weeks, twaddling platitudes, written and spoken, by meddlesome well-wishers. These exasperating necessities would have been unendurable, even had Jim been where he deserved to be; but that she should suffer them, when Jim was rejoicing as Mr. Berring and expecting his share of the money she thus laboriously earned, nearly drove her beyond the bounds of decorum. She could have thrown the novel she was reading at Lionel's head, and barely escaped doing so, when he appeared in her sitting-room, almost aggressively sympathetic. But, reflecting that with the funeral would come a cessation of these aggravations, and mindful that the money was almost in her purse, she asked him to be seated and prepared to stomach aphorisms.
"How good of you to come!" she sighed conventionally; then added, to avert, if possible, protracted boredom, "I'm dull company."
"Naturally, Lady James; but I rejoice to see that you are resigned."
"I'm not tearing my hair and gnashing my teeth, if that is what you mean. I will, if you think Jim worthy of such excesses."
"Hush, hush! He is dead."
"I see evidences of that on all sides of me," replied Leah, tartly. "Shouldn't you say that he is not lost but gone before? I believe that is one of the stock phrases of your profession."