But he was rich, that was one felicity; therefore he had friends. It is a great pity that such people ever die, as their worth, or, in other words, their wealth, cannot gain currency in the other world; but die he did, in spite of twenty thousand pounds and the doctor, who was not called in till death had a firm grip of the old miser’s windpipe, through which respiration came scant and slow, almost like the vacant yawns of a broken bellows.
Expectant friends were staggered, as by a thunder-stroke, when the read will, too legal for their satisfaction, left Miss Jenny in sure and undivided possession of goods and chattels all and sundry.
For the regular period she mourned with laudable zeal, displaying black feathers, quilled ruffles, crape veils, and starched weepers, in great and unwonted prodigality, which no one objected to, or cavilled about, solely because no one had any business to do so.
It was evident that her views of life from that era assumed a new aspect, and the polar winter of her features exhibited something like an appearance of incipient thaw; but the downy chin, wrinkled brow, and pinched nose, were still, alas! too visible. Accordingly, it is more than probable that, instead of renewing her youth like the eagles, she had only made a bold and laudable attempt to rifacciamento, in thus lighting up her features with a more frequent and general succession of smiles.
No one can deny that, in as far as regards externals, Miss Jenny mourned lugubriously and well, not stinting the usually allotted number of calendar months. These passed away, and so did black drapery; garments brightening by progressive but rapid strides. Ere the twelve months expired, Miss Jenny flaunted about in colours as gaudy as those of “the tiger-moth’s deep damasked wings,”—the counterpart of the bird of paradise, the rival of the rainbow.
Widow Martha Bouncer was a lady of a different stamp. Her features still glowed in the freshness of youthful beauty, though the symmetry of her person was a little destroyed by a tendency to corpulency. She dressed well; and there was a liveliness and activity about her motions, together with an archness in her smile, which captivated the affections of the tobacconist, rather more than was compatible with his known and undisguised hankering after the so-called good things of this life, the flesh-pots of Egypt.
Mrs Bouncer was the widow of a captain in a marching regiment; consequently she had seen a good deal of the world, and had a budget of adventures ever open for the admiration of the listening customer. Sometimes it might even be objected, that her tongue went a little too glibly; but she had a pretty face and a musical voice, and seldom failed in being attended to.
The captain did not, as his profession might lead us to surmise, decamp to the other world, after having swallowed a bullet, and dropped the death-dealing blade from his blood-besmeared hand on the field of battle, but quietly in his bed, with three pairs of excellent blankets over him, not reckoning a curiously quilted counterpane. Long anticipation lessens the shock of fate; consequently the grief of his widow was not of that violent and overwhelming kind which a more sharply-wound-up catastrophe is apt to occasion; but, having noticed the slow but gradual approaches of the grim tyrant, in the symptoms of swelled ankles, shrivelled features, troublesome cough, and excessive debility, the event came upon her as an evil long foreseen; and the sorrow occasioned by the exit of the captain was sustained with becoming fortitude.
Having been fully as free of his sacrifices to Bacchus as to the brother of Bellona, the captain left his mate in circumstances not the most flourishing; but she was enabled to keep up appearances, and to preserve herself from the gulf of debt, by an annuity bequeathed to her by her father, and by the liberality of the widows’ fund.
Time passed on at its usual careless jog-trot; and animal spirits, being a gift of nature, like all strong natural impulses, asserted their legitimate sway. Mrs Martha began to smile and simper as formerly. Folks remarked, that black suited her complexion; and Daniel Cathie could not help giving breath to the gallant remark, as he was discharging her last year’s account, that he never before had seen her looking half so well.