CHAPTER VIII.
CONSOLATION.
‘This is indeed an affliction, dear Miss Beresford. We came up directly we heard of it; I would not let a moment pass. Oh, how little we know! We were thinking of your poor niece as having returned from her foreign tour; as being about to enter upon the brilliant society of the season. I don’t know when I have received such a shock; and my poor Maria, her feelings were almost beyond control; but she would not stay away.’
‘I thought she would come,’ said Miss Charity. ‘Maria always likes to get news from the fountain-head, and to see how people are bearing their troubles. Yes, my dear, I am bearing mine very well, as you see. Poor Annie! she was only my niece by marriage after all. At my age one sees even one’s own nieces, women with families, die without great trouble. It may sound hard, but it’s true. When a woman is married, and has her own children about her, you can’t but feel that she’s less to you. It’s dreadful for them; but, so far as you are concerned, you lost her long ago.’
‘Oh, dear Miss Beresford, you like to pretend you are calm, to hide how soft-hearted you are! But we know you better than that. I myself, though I knew (comparatively) so little of poor Mrs. James——’
‘And I thought you did not like each other, so it is all the more kind of you to cry. Cherry will cry too as much as you please, and be thankful for your sympathy. Have you had a pleasant walk? I think the primroses are thicker than ever this spring. We have been sending up basketsful. She was fond of them——’ Here the old lady faltered for a moment. This was the kind of allusion that melted her, not straightforward talk. She was in profound black, a great deal more crape than the dressmaker thought at all necessary, but Miss Charity had her own views on these subjects. ‘Put double upon me, and take it off the child,’ she had said, to the wonder of the tradespeople, who felt that the mourning for a niece by marriage was a very different thing from that which was required for a mother. Mrs. Burchell respected her greatly for her crape. She knew the value of it, and the unthriftiness, and felt that this was indeed showing respect.
‘We heard it was very sudden at last,’ said the Rector, ‘that nobody had the least idea—it was a very lingering disorder that she was supposed to have? So we heard, at least. Do you happen to know how the doctors accounted for its suddenness at last? There is something very dreadful to the imagination in so sudden a death.’
‘I wish I could think I should have as quick an end,’ said Miss Charity; ‘but we Beresfords are strong, and die hard. We can’t shake off life like that. We have to get rid of it by inches.’
‘My dear lady,’ said the Rector, ‘I don’t mean to say that I would put any trust in death-bed repentances; but surely it is a privilege to have that time left to us for solemn thought, for making sure that we are in the right way.’
‘I never think much when I am ill, my dear Rector; I can’t. I think why the flies buzz so, and I think if I was Martha it would make me unhappy to have such a red nose; and if you came to me, instead of listening to what you said, I should be thinking all the time that your white tie was undone’ (here the Rector furtively and nervously glanced down, and instinctively put up his hand to feel if the remark was true) ‘or your coat rusty at the elbows. I say these things at a hazard, not that I ever remarked them,’ she added, laughing. ‘You are tidiness itself.’