I listened to the catalogue of his performances with mingled emotions of astonishment and sympathy.
He had seen the rector, and arranged for a private service to take place on Monday.
He had then gone to Grove End, where he had found his wife, and Conny, and Curling, arguing furiously, the ladies in tears, had seized upon his son-in-law, borne him off to my old lodgings, and desired him to stop there to superintend the getting ready of the apartments.
He had again driven to Grove End, ordered Conny to get together the things she wanted, presided over the packing, meanwhile keeping his wife at bay by every species of entreaty, supplication, dehortation, and even menace, until Conny was ready, when the trunks were hoisted into the phaeton, and off they started for Updown.
Nor did my uncle’s labours cease with this; for judging that amid the excitement, heat, and confusion of the hour, Curling would entirely lose sight of his own and his wife’s domestic needs, he had performed a tour of the shops, whence he had sent to them wine, poultry, groceries—in short, everything he in his dizziness could think of, finally arriving at the bank in the condition I have just described; though not to find rest yet. For, scarcely was his panting narrative concluded, when in came a client—one of those thick-headed, dull-minded farmers, who spell their names thus: +, and grin as they pronounce themselves no scholards; who, taking a seat, with his hat between his legs, began in a tongue turbid with Z’s, to demonstrate some mental difficulty he was labouring under with regard to a bill which, his son having died since it came into his possession, he had nobody now to read to him; and his memory being weak, could not recollect the date, the sum, or the conditions.
“By the way,” I exclaimed to my uncle just before leaving the bank, “what has become of my clothes?”
“All your things are packed up, and gone to Grove End.”
“Who packed them?”
“The landlady.”
“All my papers?”