“No, to be sure you do not, how could you? for the news is but this instant come—in this letter which I was carrying to you—which is addressed to you, as I found, when I got to the middle of it. I beg your pardon for opening it. Stay, stay—this is not the right letter.”
My father seemed much hurried, and looked over his parcel of letters, while he went on, saying, “This is directed to William Harrington, instead of William Harrington Harrington. Never mind about that now, only I don’t like to open letters that don’t belong to me—here it is—run your eye over it as fast as you can, and tell me—for I stopped, as soon as I saw it was not to me—tell me how it is with Mowbray—I never liked the fellow, nor his mother either; but one can’t help pitying—and being shocked—shocked indeed I was, the moment I read the letter.”
The letter, which appeared to have been written in great perturbation, and at two or three different times, with different inks, was from a brother officer of Lord Mowbray’s. It began in a tolerably composed and legible hand, with an account of a duel, in which the writer of the letter said that he had been second to Lord Mowbray. His lordship had been wounded, but it was hoped he would do well. Then came the particulars of the duel, which the second stated, of course, as advantageously for himself and his principal as he could; but even by his own statement it appeared that Lord Mowbray had been the aggressor; that he had been intemperate; and, in short, entirely in the wrong: the person with whom he fought was a young officer, who had been his schoolfellow: the dispute had begun about some trivial old school quarrel, on the most nonsensical subject; something about a Jew boy of the name of Jacob, and a pencil-case; the young gentleman had appealed to the evidence of Mr. Harrington, whom he had lately met on a fishing-party, and who, he said, had a perfect recollection of the circumstance. Lord Mowbray grew angry; and in the heat of contradiction, which, as his second said, his lordship could never bear, he gave his opponent the lie direct. A duel was the necessary consequence. Lord Mowbray insisted on their firing across the table: his opponent was compelled to it. They fired, as it was agreed, at the same instant: Lord Mowbray fell. So far was written while the surgeon was with his patient. Afterwards, the letter went on in a more confused manner. The surgeon begged that Lord Mowbray’s friends might be informed, to prepare them for the event; but still there were hopes. Lord Mowbray had begun to write a letter to Mr. Harrington, but could not go on—had torn it to bits—and had desired the writer of the present letter to say, “that he could not go out of the world easy, without his forgiveness—to refer him to a woman of the name of Fowler, for explanation—a waiting-maid—a housekeeper now, in his mother’s family. Lord Mowbray assured Mr. Harrington, that he did not mean to have carried the jest (the word jest scratched out), the thing farther than to show him his power to break off matters, if he pleased—but he now repented.”
This dictated part of the letter was so confused, and so much like the delirium of a man in a fever, that I should certainly have concluded it to be without real meaning, had it not coincided with the words which Fowler had said to me. On turning over the page I saw a postscript—Lord Mowbray, at two o’clock that morning, had expired. His brother officer gave no particulars, and expressed little regret, but begged me to represent the affair properly; and added something about the lieutenant-colonelcy, which was blotted so much, either purposely or accidentally, that I could not read it.
My father, who was a truly humane man, was excessively shocked by the letter; and at first, so much engrossed by the account of the manner of the young man’s death, and by the idea of the shock and distress of the mother and sister, that he scarcely adverted to the unintelligible messages to me. He observed, indeed, that the writer of the letter seemed to be a fool, and to have very little feeling. We agreed that my mother was the fittest person to break the matter to poor Lady de Brantefield. If my mother should not feel herself equal to the task, my father said he would undertake it himself, though he had rather have a tooth pulled out than go through it.
We went together to my mother. We found her in hysterics, and Fowler beside her; my mother, the moment she saw us, recovered some recollection, and pushing Fowler from her with both her hands, she cried, “Take her away—out of my sight—out of my sight.” I took the hartshorn from Fowler, and bid her leave the room; ordering her, at her peril, not to leave the house.
“Why did you tell Mrs. Harrington so suddenly, Mrs. Fowler?” my father began, supposing that my mother’s hysterics were the consequence of having been told, too suddenly, the news of Lord Mowbray’s death.
“I did not tell her, sir; I never uttered a sentence of his lordship’s death.”
In her confusion, the woman betrayed her knowledge of the circumstance, though on her first speaking to me she had not mentioned it. While I assisted and soothed my mother, I heard my father questioning her. “She heard the news that morning, early, in a letter from Lord Mowbray’s gentleman—had not yet had the heart to mention it to her lady—believed she had given a hint of it to Lady Anne—was indeed so flurried, and still was so flurried—”
My father, perceiving that Fowler did not know what she was saying, good-naturedly attributed her confusion to her sorrow for her ladies; and did not wonder, he said, she was flurried: he was not nervous, but it had given him a shock. “Sit down, poor Fowler.”