The following letter, posted at Saxton, reached a rather solitary student in St. John’s College, Cambridge.
“Dear William,
“You will be sorry—I know you will—to hear that poor old auntie is not long for this world; I don’t know exactly what is wrong, but something I am certain very bad. As for Doctor Drake, I have no faith in him, or, indeed, in medicine, and don’t mean to trouble him except as a friend. I am quite happy in the expectation of the coming change, and have had within the last week, with the assistance of good old Winnie Dobbs, some very delightful communications, you know, I dare say, what I mean. Bring with you—for you must come immediately, if you care to see poor Aunt Dinah before she departs—a basket-bottle of eau de Cologne, like the former, you know the kind I mean, and buy it at the same place. You need not get the cameo ring for Doctor Drake; I shan’t make him a present—in fact, we are not now on terms. I had heard from many people of his incivility and want of temper; God forgive him his ingratitude, however, as I do. The basket-bottle holds about a pint, remember. I want to tell you exactly what I can do for you by my will; I always told you, dear William, it was very small; still, as the people used to say, ‘every little makes a muckle,’ and though little, it will be a help. I cannot rest till you come; I know and am sure you love poor old auntie, and would like to close her eyes when the hour comes; therefore, dear Willie, come without delay. Also bring with you half a pound of the snuff, the same mixture as before; they make it up at Figgs’s—get it there—not in paper, observe; in a canister, and rolled in lead, as will be poor auntie before long! Old Dobbs will have your room and bed comfortable, as usual; come by the cross coach, at eight o’clock. Tea, and anything else you like, will await you.
“Ever your fond old
“Auntie.
“P.S.—I send you, to guard against mistakes, the exact proportions of the mixture—the snuff I mean, of course. I quite forgot a new collar for Psyche, plated. Make them engrave ‘Mrs. Perfect, Gilroyd Hall,’ upon it. Heaven bless you. We are all progressing upward. Amen! says your poor old Aunt Dinah, who loves you.”
It was in his quiet college room by candlelight that William Maubray read this letter from his kind, wild, preposterous old aunt, who had been to him as a mother from his early days.
Aunt Dinah! was it possible that he was about to lose that familiar friend and face, the only person on earth who cared about him?
He read the letter over again. A person who did not know Aunt Dinah so well as he, would have argued from the commissions about scents, dog-collars, and snuff, that the old lady had no honest intention of dying. But he knew that incongruous and volatile soul too well to infer reliable consolation from those levities.
“Yes, yes—I shall lose her—she’s gone,” said the young man in great distress, laying the letter, with the gentleness of despair, upon the table, and looking down upon it in pain and rumination.
It would certainly make a change—possibly a fatal one—in his prospects. A sudden change. He read the letter through again, and then, with a sinking heart, he opened the window and looked out upon the moonlight prospect. There are times when in her sweetest moods nature seems unkind. Why all this smiling light—this cheer and serenity of sky and earth—when he was stricken only five minutes since, perhaps undone, by the message of that letter—that sorrow-laden burlesque?
This sort of suggestion, in such a moment, comes despairingly. The vastness of creation—the inflexibility of its laws, and “What is man, and what am I among men, that the great Projector of all this should look after ephemeral me and my concerns? The human sympathy that I could rely upon, and human power—frail and fleeting—but still enough—is gone, and in this solitary hour, as in the coming one of death, experience fails me, and I must rest all upon that which, according to my light, is faith, or theory, or chance!”
With a great sigh, and a heavy heart, William Maubray turned away from the window, and a gush of very true affection flooded his heart as he thought of kind old Aunt Dinah. He read the letter once more, to make out what gleams of comfort he could.
A handsome fellow was William Maubray—nearly three-and-twenty by this time—good at cricket—great at football: three years ago, in the school days, now, so old, tall, and lithe. A studious man in his own way—a little pale, with a broad forehead, good blue eyes, and delicately formed, but somewhat sad features.