The duke undertook all the arrangements for the funeral; and after much melancholy conversation with his Grace concerning the shocking state in which the earl had left his affairs, and having offered to provide, should it be necessary, for Miss Macspleuchan, Mr. Aubrey took his departure.
"Is the carriage at the door?" he inquired of the servant who stood in the hall expecting his approach.
"Yes, my Lord," he replied; and his words caused Lord Drelincourt almost to start back a step or two; and he changed color. Then he entered his carriage, and continued in a very melancholy and subdued mood during the whole of the drive up to town. He had, indeed, now become Lord Drelincourt—an event thus announced the next morning to the great world, in the columns of the obsequious Aurora.
"Yesterday, at his residence, Poppleton Hall, Hertfordshire, in his seventieth year, died the Right Hon. the Earl of Dreddlington, G.C.B., F.C.S., &c. &c. His Lordship was Fifth Earl of Dreddlington, and Twentieth Baron Drelincourt. The Earldom (created in 1667) is now extinct; but his Lordship is succeeded in the ancient barony of Drelincourt (created by writ, 12th Henry II.) by Charles Aubrey, Esq. of Yatton, in Yorkshire, the representative of the younger branch of the family, who is now 21st Lord Drelincourt, and has just succeeded in establishing his title to the whole of the Yatton property, which about two years ago, it may be remembered, was recovered in a very extraordinary manner (which is now, we believe, the subject of judicial inquiry) by Tittlebat Titmouse, Esq., at present M.P. for Yatton.
His Lordship (whois now in his thirty-sixth year) took a double first-class at Oxford, and sat for several years as member for Yatton. He married, in 18—, Agnes, sole daughter and heiress of the late Colonel St. Clair, who fell in the Peninsular war, and has issue by her Ladyship two children, Charles, born in 18—, and Agnes, born in 18—. His Lordship has no brothers, and only one sister, Miss Catharine Aubrey, who is understood to be affianced to the Hon. Mr. Delamere, the only son and heir of the Right Hon. Lord De la Zouch."
Till Yatton could be got ready for their reception, they had taken, as a temporary residence, a furnished house in Dover Street, only a few doors' distance from that of Lord De la Zouch; and on his arrival from Poppleton Hall, Lord Drelincourt found Lady Drelincourt and his sister had not yet returned from their afternoon's drive. When they drew up to the door, however, the closed shutters and drawn blinds apprised them of the melancholy event which had taken place. On hearing that Lord Drelincourt was alone in the drawing-room, where he had been for upwards of an hour, they rushed hastily up-stairs, and in a few moments Lord and Lady Drelincourt had fondly embraced each other, and Miss Aubrey, full of eager affection, had embraced both of them; and then, quitting the room, quickly returned with Charles and Agnes, now—little unconscious creatures!—the Honorable Charles and Honorable Agnes Aubrey. Surely it was not to be expected that any of them should entertain very poignant feelings of sorrow for the death of an individual who had ever totally estranged himself from them, and treated every member of their family with the most offensive and presumptuous insolence—with the bitterest contempt; who, when he knew that they were destitute and all but perishing, had kept cruelly aloof as ever, without once extending towards them a helping hand. Still they had regarded the afflicting circumstances which attended, and hastened, their lofty kinsman's death, with sincere commiseration for one so weak and misguided, and whose pride had had, indeed, so signal and fearful a fall. These were topics which afforded scope for sad but instructive conversation and reflection; and before Lord and Lady Drelincourt had laid their heads on their pillows that night, they again devoutly returned thanks to Heaven for the happy restoration which had been vouchsafed to them, and offered sincere and fervent prayers for its guidance in every stage of their future career.
This event, of course, threw them again, for a time, into mourning. Lord Drelincourt attended the funeral of the late earl, which took place at Poppleton, and was plain and private; and a few days afterwards, yearning to see Yatton once again, and anxious also to give his personal directions concerning very many matters which required them, he accepted an offer of a seat in the carriage of Lord De la Zouch, who was going down for a few days to Fotheringham on business of importance. Lord Drelincourt agreed to take up his abode at Fotheringham during his brief stay in Yorkshire, and to give no one at Yatton a previous intimation of his intention to pay a visit to them—purposing, the morning after his arrival at Fotheringham, to ride over quietly, alone and unexpectedly, to the dear place of his birth, and scene of such signal trials and expected joys of restoration and reunion.
'Twas about four o'clock in the afternoon of a frosty day in the early part of December; and Dr. Tatham was sitting alone in his plainly-furnished and old-fashioned little study, beside the table on which Betty, his old housekeeper, had just laid his scanty show of tea-things—the small, quaintly-figured round silver tea-pot having been the precious gift, more than twenty years before, of old Madam Aubrey. On his knee lay open a well-worn parchment-covered Elzevir edition of Thomas à Kempis, a constant companion of the doctor's, which he had laid down a few moments before, in a fit of musing—and was gazing in the direction of the old yew-tree, a portion of which, with a gray crumbling corner of his church, at only some two dozen yards' distance, was visible through the window. On one side of his book-shelves hung his surplice on one peg, and on another his gown; and on the other his rusty shovel-hat and walking-stick. Over the mantelpiece were suspended two small black profile likenesses of old Squire Aubrey and Madam Aubrey, which they had themselves presented to the doctor nearly thirty years before. Though it was very cold, there was but a handful of fire in the little grate; and this, together with the modicum of brown sugar in the sugar-basin, and about two small spoonfuls of tea, which he had just before measured out of his little tea-caddy, into the cup, in order to be ready to put it into his tea-pot, when Betty should have brought in the kettle—and four thin slices of scantily buttered brown bread—all this, I say, seemed touching evidence of the straitened circumstances in which the poor doctor was placed. His clothes, too, very clean, very threadbare, and of a very rusty hue—down even to his gaiters—suggested the same reflection to the beholder. The five pounds which he had scraped together for purchasing a new suit, Mr. Titmouse, it will be remembered, had succeeded in cheating him out of. His hair was of a silvery white; and though he was evidently a little cast down in spirits, the expression of his countenance was as full of benevolence and piety as ever. He was, moreover, considerably thinner than when he was last presented to the reader; and well he might be, for he had since undergone great privation and anxiety. He—he, peaceful unoffending old soul!—had long been followed with pertinacious bitterness and persecution by two new inhabitants of the village; viz. the Rev. Smirk Mudflint and Mr. Bloodsuck, junior. The former had obtained a lease from Mr. Titmouse of the little structure which had formerly been Miss Aubrey's school, and had turned it into an Unitarian chapel—himself and family residing in part of the building. He preached every Sunday at Dr. Tatham, turning his person, his habits, his office, and his creed into bitter ridicule; and repeatedly challenging him, from his pulpit, to an open discussion of the points in difference between them! By means of his "moral" discourses every Sunday morning, and his "political" discourses every Sunday evening—and which he used all his powers to render palatable to those who heard him—he was undoubtedly seducing away many of the parishioners from the parish church; a matter which began visibly to prey upon the doctor's spirits. Then Mr. Bloodsuck, too, was carrying on the campaign briskly against the parson—against whom he had got a couple of actions pending at the suit of parishioners, in respect of his right to certain tithes which had never before been questioned by any one. Only that very day the impudent jackanapes—for that, I am sure, you would have pronounced Mr. Barnabas Bloodsuck at first sight—had sent a very peremptory and offensive letter to the doctor, which had been designed by its writer to have the effect of drawing him into a sudden compromise; whereas the doctor, with a just sense and spirit, had resolved never in any way to suffer his rights, and those of his successors, to be infringed. Many and many a weary walk to Mr. Parkinson's office at Grilston had these persecuting proceedings of Bloodsuck's cost the doctor, and also considerable and unavoidable expense, which, had he been in any other hands than those of good Mr. Parkinson, must by this time have involved the doctor in utter ruin, and broken his heart. Still generous according to his means, the good soul had, on his last visit to Grilston, purchased and brought home with him a couple of bottles of port-wine, which he intended to take on Christmas-day to the poor brother parson in an adjoining parish, to whom I alluded in the early part of this history. All these matters might well occasion Dr. Tatham anxiety, and frequent fits of despondency, such as that under which he was suffering, when he heard a gentle tapping at his door, while sitting in his study as I have described him. "Come in, Betty," quoth the doctor, in his usual kind and quiet way, supposing it to be his old housekeeper with his tea-kettle; for she had gone with it a few minutes before across the yard to the well, leaving the front door ajar till her return. As he uttered the words above-mentioned, the door opened. He sat with his back towards it; and finding, after a pause, that no one entered or spoke, he turned round in his chair to see the reason why; and beheld a gentleman standing there, dressed in deep mourning, and gazing at him with an expression of infinite tenderness and benignity. The doctor was a little of a believer in the reality of spiritual appearances; and, taken quite off his guard, jumped out of his chair, and, stared for a second or two in mute amazement, if not even apprehension, at the figure standing silently in the doorway.
"Why! Bless—bless my soul—can it be"—he stammered, and the next instant perceived that it was indeed, as I may say, the desire of his eyes—Mr. Aubrey, now become, as the doctor had a few days before heard from Mr. Parkinson, Lord Drelincourt.