"His deathbed was a painful scene," Lettice went on, her face displaying her emotion, while she with great effort restrained her tears: "he trusted in God; but there was a fearful prospect before us, and he could not help trembling for his children. Dear, dear father! he reproached himself for his want of faith, and would try to strengthen us, 'but the flesh,' he said, 'was weak.' He could not look forward without anguish. It was a fearful struggle to be composed and confiding—he could not help being anxious. It was for us, you know, not for himself."
"Frightful!" cried Catherine, indignantly; "frightful! that a man of education, a scholar, a gentleman, a man of so much activity in doing good, and so much power in preaching it, should be brought to this. One hundred and ten pounds a year, was that all? How could you exist?"
"We had the house and the garden besides, you know, and my mother was such an excellent manager; and my father! No religious of the severest order was ever more self-denying, and there was only me. My aunt Price, you know, took Myra—Myra had been delicate from a child, and was so beautiful, and she was never made to rough it, my mother and my aunt said. Now I seemed made expressly for the purpose," she added, smiling with perfect simplicity.
"And his illness, so long! and so expensive!" exclaimed Catherine, with a sort of cry.
"Yes, it was—and to see the pains he took that it should not be expensive. He would be quite annoyed if my mother got any thing nicer than usual for his dinner. She used to be obliged to make a mystery of it; and we were forced almost to go down upon our knees to get him to have the surgeon from Nottingham. Nothing but the idea that his life would be more secure in such hands could have persuaded him into it. He knew how important that was to us. As for the pain which the bungling old doctor hard by would have given him, he would have borne that rather than have spent money. Oh, Catherine! there have been times upon times when I have envied the poor. They have hospitals to go to; they are not ashamed to ask for a little wine from those who have it; they can beg when they are in want of a morsel of bread. It is natural. It is right—they feel it to be right. But oh! for those, as they call it, better born, and educated to habits of thought like those of my poor father!... Want is, indeed, like an armed man, when he comes into their dwellings."
"Too true, my dear young lady," said Mrs. Danvers, whose eyes were by this time moist; "but go on, if it does not pain you too much, your story is excessively interesting. There is yet a wide step between where your relation leaves us, and where I found you."
"We closed his eyes at last in deep sorrow. Excellent man, he deserved a better lot! So, at least, it seems to me—but who knows? Nay, he would have reproved me for saying so. He used to say of himself, so cheerfully, 'It's a rough road, but it leads to a good place.' Why could he not feel this for his wife and children? He found that so very difficult!"
"He was an excellent and a delightful man," said Catherine. "Well?"...
"Well, my dear, when he had closed his eyes, there was his funeral. We could not have a parish funeral. The veriest pauper has a piety toward the dead which revolts at that. We did it as simply as we possibly could, consistently with common decency; but they charge so enormously for such things: and my poor mother would not contest it. When I remonstrated a little, and said I thought it was right to prevent others being treated in the same way, who could no better afford it than we could, I shall never forget my mother's face: 'I dare say—yes, you are right, Lettice; quite right—but not this—not his. I can not debate that matter. Forgive me, dear girl; it is weak—but I can not.'
"This expense exhausted all that was left of our little money: only a few pounds remained when our furniture had been sold, and we were obliged to give up possession of that dear, dear, little parsonage, and we were without a roof to shelter us. You remember it, Catherine!"