1 A 1 A. - ■_ < w 1 A = — oi n ■ " = sar o iff 1 o i 1 o i ■— rn ;•: = ^D III 1 1 3 I — CO ■ o H — ^ ■ 1 ? a s^^ > iff 6 = = CD H ^^^ ^j ■ 2 m - jo ■ 2 I -^ - > 1 7 1 — o ij] BSBS < — 1 1 — 1 IHI ,,.^a ■< If 5 ■ I ll lili ■ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF i Members the same ; Executive r offices at , and At- ed to take cellaneous all books returned; Reports of embers of e retained .embers of ■turned at i California State Library ken from I ; Section, I f the Li- j t belongs; 1 or of any ] "or his per l [ember or i him, and 5 . »e. 5. All fines and forfeitures accruing under and by virtue of this shall be recoverable by action of debt before any Justice of the ;e or Court having jurisdiction of the same, in the name of the pie of the State of California, for the use of the State Library, in all such trials, the entries of the Librarian, to be made as inbefore described, shall be evidence of the delivery of the book 3oks, and of the dates thereof.; and it shall be his duty to carry provisionB-ol this Act into execution, and sue lor all injuries ■ to the Library , and for all penalties under this Act. ( .Tas. Alien, State 1'rint. * V ► (/ 7/f r r --•^app^s^r /n SOWING AND REAPING; OR. WHAT WILL COME OF IT. BY MARY HO WITT. AUTHOR OF "STRIVE AND THRIVE," " HOPE ON ! HOPE EVEfcf ETC ETC. NEW-YORK : D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 34G &. 3+S BROADWAY. MDCCCLV1I. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAOfc I. A Character . 1 II. A Removal 8 III. Stanton-Combe and its Inhabitants ... 16 IV. Sowing 32 V. A Chapter of Troubles 41 VI. Threatened Ejectment 49 VII. A Real Ejectment GO VIII. Family Affairs 67 IX. The Funeral 83 X. The Breaking up of a Family 102 XI. The Great Sale by Auction 108 XII. An Unlooked for Event 117 XIII. Life in London 123 XIV. Reaping 13(5 XV. Reaping, Continued 157 Conclusion 16i> *3> rht, of all, should be kept at home; and she had already laid out the scheme of the day's festivity: but he knew that London was gayer than Stanton-Combe, even in its best days; and he laughed at the idea of goirtg down there, just to please an old woman, who had set her heart on eating plum-pudding with him, and drinking his health in old ale!" By degrees unpleasant apprehensions stole into Mrs. Durant's mind, and she wrote to Sharpie to urge her son's return, and also to request that money might not be advanced ; " although," said she, " he is, now his own master. But you know, my good sir," she added, " the state of my affairs as well as I do ; and I do not wish niy son to in- . volve himself in difficulties before he takes the management into his own hands. He has but one fault — a fault, I apprehend, common to most young men — disinclination for business. I have been unwilling, heretofore, to urge business upon him ; but the time is now come when his good sense will be stronger than my persuasions." Anthony Sharpie smiled one of his most sinister smiles as he read the letter, and saw the mother was trying to impose upon her own judgment. He, however, informed Richard of his mother's wish for his return. Richard was angry that " she should set Sharpie to meddle in hi? affairs," and vowed "that he would not go back for all the mothers in the world." Sharpie urged him uo E 88 SOWING. more ; and Sir Thomas was quite as well pleased that he staid yet longer, and involved himself in debts on his own account. At length, Richard himself began to talk of returning ; and, as a yet further step towards it, fixed upon a day. Sharpie desired an interview with him on business. He then made him listen to a long detail of money matters, arrears of interest, and transfers of mort- gages, through a period of ten or twelve years. Had Sharpie spoken in the language of Tadmor he could not have been more unintelligible. One thing only could Dick understand — that no more money could be advanced, either to him or to his mother. Abundant were the apologies which Sharpie made; and, so far he explained himself as to confess, that he was but the agent of another person — of the money-lender, in fact, who was " now determined to put things on another foot- ing !" He wished it were in his power to accom- modate them with money, " but he himself," he said, " was poor." Dick would have laughed at such an assertion, at any other time, but the law- yer's countenance had made him grave too. In- stead, however, of seeing folly in his own reckless extravagance, he only was angry with his mother, " who had let his affairs," he said, " get into such a ravel ! Was there no way," Richard asked, " by which they could get out of the mess?" Sharpie appeared to demur, and then suggested that there was. " If the entail were annulled, and sale of the land effected, all borrowed monies might be cleared off." Dick did not like the idea of parting with his partrimony, and refused. SOWING. 39 " We part then," said Sharpie; "and I must pre- sent you with this small piece of paper, which, you will see, demands, within six months, the re- payment of all money lent, with legal interest thereon." " It is impossible !" said Richard, looking with horror at the long array of figures ; " you know it to be impossible as well as I do !" Sharpie did not deny that, and again mentioned sale. Richard swore that sale should never be; and, desiring Sharpie to turn it over in his head, took coach home; "being determined," he said, " to give the old woman a regular blowing up !" Mrs. Durant was overjoyed to see her son, but he met her with reproaches; money quarrels are always bitter ones; and a scene of altercation followed, in which Richard out-stormed his mo- ther, and she went to bed with a sore feeling at her heart, that her son treated her with great un- kindness. There was nothing which Sir Thomas Durant so much desired as, that the want of money should be severely felt at Stanton-Combe. The time which he desired was now come. In vain had Mrs. Durant, foreseeing coming troubles, reduced her own and the family's expenditure to the lowest scale. She had parted, as we have seen, with her own expensive horse ; she no longer allowed her- self a new broad-cloth habit, each season; she attended no races, nor county balls, as she had formerly done. She parted with every extra ser- vant who contributed merely to her own, or her husband's, or daughter's comfort. Richard only retrenched nothing — nor, certainly, did his mother 40 SOWING. urt love him, Lizzy !" "Father, father! say no more!" whispered his daughter, seeing plainly that her uncle's visit was anything but one of friendship. " Come with me, dearest father !" and, unloosing his hands from their hold upon his brother, she endeavoured to lead him away. " Husband!" said Mrs. Durant, seeing him turn to go away with his daughter, " this is your brother, come to rob your children of their patri- mony ; come to turn you and them out of doors ! To drive them," she continued, with hysterical energy, " from house and from home, from bed, board, and fireside !" The old man turned back again, and, lifting up 58 THREATENED EJECTMENT. his feeble arms, exclaimed, " In the face of Heaven, tell me, Tom, is it so ?" Sir Thomas Durant was pale, both with emo- tion and anger. " What I have paid for," said he, " is it not mine own ? Did not thine own hand sign the deed by which this inheritance be- came mine ?" " No ! no ! never !" screamed the old man. " Never ! I will die rather than sell my birth- right ! Thou shalt not have it — I tell thee thou shalt not! I will not sell my children's inheri- tance ! I will not ! By Heaven, I will not !' " You have done it already !" replied his brother. " Have I ?" exclaimed the poor old man. " No, I think not ! I love my children too well. I am a feeble old man, I know; but I should never do that; and I never will!" exclaimed he; "and, clever as you are, Tom, you shall never persuade me to it ! No, no ! I will not make my children beggars ! and may him that counsels it, and he that does it, perish in the ruin it will bring !" At this moment, exhausted by the violence of his ex- citement, he sunk back, and would have fallen, had not Richard supported him, and showed then more kindness to his father than he had ever done before. Sir Thomas Durant was affected by this inter- view; but he was accustomed to control his feel- ings. As soon, therefore, as his brother was removed, vehement words passed between him and his nephew, who had known nothing of his part in the transaction, nor of the legal notice which had been sent to them, till that very evening, THREATENED EJECTMENT. 59 when Sharpie, drawing him aside, had hastily made him acquainted with these facts. He felt as if he were standing upon a gulf which was widening below his feet; but whether he was more angry with his mother, who had concealed these later facts, or with his uncle, who had thus treacherously entrapped them, it is impossible to tell. All was uproar and confusion; and Sir Thomas at length made a hasty exit, glad to feel himself safe on the outside that, house which he had been so eager to enter scarcely an hour before. The two had not, however, reached the door-steps when Sharpie returned to say that he and Sir Thomas should remain at the Durant Arms for the next four-and- twenty houl-s. Poor Mrs. Durant thought now indeed that the cup of her troubles was full to overflowing, and especially as her son would not appreciate the motives of kindness which had kept these threat- ened evils from his knowledge. It was in vain that she protested that no power on earth should compel them to leave; that they would go to law about it; that she would spend the last farthing she could raise in defending her son's right. Richard was at first pale with passion, and cast upon her the most unkind upbraidings, and then sunk into sullen anger, and paced about the room till past midnight, without vouchsafing her either word or look. " Oh," said the unhappy woman, when she was left alone, " I can bear all but this. To be re- proached by him! — by him for w r hom I have GO A REAL EJECTMENT done so much! — between whom and trouble I have always stood ! This is, indeed, the bitterest of my sorrows I" CHAPTER VII. A REAL EJECTMENT. Mr. Durant was put to bed in a state of in- sensibility; and Elizabeth, not choosing to leave his apartment, sat down by the fire. She was oppressed by the saddest feelings — anxiety for her father, and an imperfect comprehension of the nature of her uncle's visit. Some great sorrow she was sure hung over them, which was even more apparent from the mystery that involved it. The most profound silence reigned in the house for some time after Sir Thomas's departure, in which the sound of her mother and brother's voices, in angry disputation, reached even that remote chamber. From time to time she stole to the bedside to see how it fared with her father; but though he was evidently ill, from the excite- ment of the evening, he appeared to sleep calmly. She sat by the fire, hoping that before long her mother, whose chamber adjoined her father's, would look in upon them before she retired for the night. But the hour of her usual bed-time passed, and no one came. Poor Mrs. Durant never thought of sleep that night ; and still Eliza- beth sat alone, listening in that state of intense A REAL EJECTMENT. 61 excitement, when the Matcher seems to become all nerve, alive to every sound, and when the vision swarms with fantastic images. At length the voices of contention had ceased; all was profoundly still; then steps seemed passing about hurriedly below; doors opened and shut hastily; occasionally voices were heard, and then all again sank into the same dead stillness. Again and again Elizabeth stole to the bed; turned the curtain slowly aside, and looked in upon him, but he still slept. In that deep silence the great cluck of the cupola tolled one, with a solemn, startling sound that seemed appalling; it Mas like a knell, and it flung upon her soul an awful sense of death, and solitude, and desertion. She com- mended herself to Heaven, and tried to reassure herself that, let human fortune gloom as it may, all are still in the hands of the Eternal Father. " God is about us," said she, " when M-e are most forlorn !" and falling on her knees at her father's bedside, besought the protection of Heaven for them both. She arose strengthened and assured, and began to think of settling herself for the night in the large easy chair which stood upon the hearth, when Bridget, an old servant, entered. There was a curious mixture of trouble, indignation, and important business in her countenance. She sat down on a low seat opposite to Elizabeth, and, placing her palms flat upon her knees, leaned for- M-ard, with her elbows projecting outward, in her attitude of interminable talk. « Lord, Miss !" she began, " and all this to o 62 A REAL EJECTMENT. happen of a Monday night ! If it had been a Friday, no wonde,.. Fridays are always unlucky! And so we are all to go afore morning! Chris- tians and brutes; live stock and dead; furniture, linen, and plate; beds, bedding, china, and glass; and no thought taken for the breakage and the smashery ! Lauk, Miss ! it would take a month to pack them as they ought to be packed. And the pictures, and the books, and the looking-glasses," continued she, as if she had been reading from a catalogue; " and the harpsichord, and the knick- knackery, and the stone- ware figures (statues,) as came out o' foreign parts, how are they all to be got away in four-and-tvventy hours? that's what I should like to know ! But no, thank ye, there's no thought taken for nothing ! Out all must be turned, and leave nothing but bare walls !" " You must be mistaken, Bridget," said Eliza- beth. « Not I !" replied she. " Not I, indeed, M»ss Elizabeth. And if master should die, as like enough he will, for we have had winding-sheets in candles, and a matter of ten death-watches in the house all within the last month; why, then, I should like to know who has been the death of him ?" " My poor father 1" sighed Elizabeth. " And only to think," said Bridget, " that it was his own brother — them that were children together in this very house — little innocent child- ren I And now here he comes cursing and swear- ing! I wonder he warn't ashamed, and he the A REAL EJECTMENT. 63 younger brother ! Lord help us ! and they say as how he has got all made over to himself, and that neither Mr. Richard nor the master there can touch a penny ! Nothing is their's, say they, but what the house holds; and I should like to know what household stuff is good for when there's no longer a house to hold it ! Bless me ! and what is to become of all — live stock and dead ! say nothing of the family, nor any of us that have spent our lives in its service, and have neither kin to welcome us, nor house to cover us? I should like to know what's to become of us, Miss Elizabeth ! " Alas !" said Elizabeth, with a deep sigh, and eyes full of tears. " Why, now," said Bridget, " what an old fool I am to come here troubling you; for, Heaven knows, there never was a kinder heart than your's: that there never Mas !" " But will not my brother resist this aggression of my uncle's ?" asked Elizabeth, " and my mo- ther, too ?" " Lord, Miss !" replied Bridget, " things seem to me to have ta'en a turn quite right about, for there's been Madam and Mr. Richard at high words for these hours." " It is very strange!" said Elizabeth, scarcely knowing what to say. " Strange enough," said Bridget; " but Eve that to tell which is strangest of all. The piece of armour that belonged to my Lord Viscount, and stood in the gallery, has fallen to the ground 1 It fell from its place as Mr. Thomas — Sir Thomas 64 A REAL EJECTMENT. they call him— slammed the hall-door in going out. Every soul in the house, except Madam and Mr. Richard, has been to see it; and, what makes it more stranger still, this very piece of armour fell down, the very night, may be, nve- and-twenty years since; nay, more than five-and- twent y — likelier thirty years since— when this same Sir Thomas, a young man then, quarrelled with the master that lies in his bed there, and set off, Heaven knows where, and never entered the place till this night, when he is come to bring ruin and trouble to every one. It is a strange thin", Miss Elizabeth, a mighty strange thing . "It is," said Elizabeth, " a strange and melan- choly thing altogether. My heart aches with ap- prehension !" « No wonder, poor dear !" said the old woman, « no wonder ! And if we are all to be turned out of house and borne, I should like to know where we are all to go. Times are not what they used to be, when there was money for the asking ! I warrant me, Madam never thought to see the day when we might want a mouthful ot bread!" . , Elizabeth made no reply, for then a deep sigh., and the feeble voice of her father, arrested her attention. She stood beside him instantly, and bent over his pillow. « God bless you, Lizzy love! said he, you are my only comfort !" « My dearest father !" replied she, deeply affected by the solemnity of his manner. » You never grieved me ! You are all the A REAL EJECTMENT. 65 comfort I ever had," repeated he, " and may God Almighty bless you !" These consoling but solemn words overcame her already excited feelings, and she wept while she aflectionately kissed his hand. " Thank God !" she at length said, " you are better !" Again and again she spoke; but, though her father's eye appeared fixed on her countenance, she received no answer. Bridget brought the lamp to the bedside, and they saw that, though still alive, a great change had passed over him: he was speechless. " Call mother!" whispered Elizabeth, alarmed and distressed, " and bid her come instantly !" The old woman obeyed, and presently returned. " Lord love you !" said she, " Madam is crying by herself, in the great parlour. I never saw such a sight before. I spoke twice before she heard me, and then she was mighty angry. ' And can't you give him a drop of wine,' says she, ' without disturbing me?' " " My poor, dear father! my beloved father !" sobbed Elizabeth, and turned away from the bed. The old man's eyes followed her, and an indistinct sound was heard, as of an attempt to speak. Again she bent over him; and the old woman prepared such stimulants as were at their com- mand. Elizabeth took the cold, feeble hands and rubbed them in hers; she laid her Avarm cheek to his; and Bridget, the forty years' nurse of the family, employed all her skill to recovei him. But it was too late. Life was no further ex- o 2 66 A REAL EJECTMENT. hibited than by the lingering and affectionate expression of the eyes. The last sentiment of the dying man was grateful affection to the dutiful daughter, who had been a joy to him through the whole of her life, and who now was the comfort of his death-bed. It was not till three o'clock in the morning that Elizabeth could indeed believe her father to be dead; but then the pallid and fallen countenance, and the glazed eye, forced the melancholy truth upon her. She burst forth into no loud lamenta- tion, and yet her desolate situation, her friendless and forlorn state, the one who had loved her most lying dead before her, all fell upon her spirit with a chill that almost overwhelmed her. When Bridget went down to communicate the death of Mr. Durant to his wife, she found her still sitting where she had left her, not weeping; the agony of her grief had subsided, for it was only the moment of extremest suffering that could wring tears from Mrs. Durant; but she sat pale, and as if stupified by deep thought. " Master is dead !" said Bridget, without pre- face of any kind. " Dead!" repeated the lady, with something like a shudder. " God rest his soul !" and, putting her hands before her face, Bridget declared that she wept; that Madam Durant had wept twice in one night ! " Dead I" repeated Mrs. Durant to herself, soon after Bridget was gone; " then, at least, we must have time" to bury him ! With a corpse in the bouse we may defy his ejectment. We will have rAMILY AFFAIRS. 67 time for the burial; and I will have a funera; which shall collect about us all our friends and neighbours. I'll make the country cry shame on the man who oppressed the family of his dead brother !" CHAPTER VIII. FAMILY AFFAIRS. At day break the tolling of the church-bell an- nounced to the villagers the death of Mr. Durant; and Anthony Sharpie, who was stirring early, carried up- the tidings of this unlooked-for event to Sir Thomas in his bed. " It is a device of that artful woman's," said he; " the old man is alive : as much alive as I am," continued he, rising in his bed. " I dare swear it !" returned the acquiescent Sharpie. " But I will not be defeated ! I will not be played with ! and without bona fide evidence of his natural death, the ejectment shall be enforced ! I'll not be made a fool of!" said Sir Thomas: " send me my valet instantly; I will rise!" Sharpie did as he was ordered; and, while his patron dressed, walked into the village to gather up opinions as to the supposed death of the master of Stanton-Combe. Everywhere he found people engaged in talk- ing over the strange events of the night preced- ing, rumours of which had come down from the 68 FAMILY AFFAIRS. hall to the village. Old men and women were relating anecdotes of the boyhood of the two brothers. " Ay, he was a fiery, hot-headed man, that Thomas Durant !" " Desperate clever," said another, " but desperate proud, and loved by no- body !" " Now, him as is dead," said a third, " had a right kind heart of his own, though his head was none of the strongest. He'd have given a poor man the last shilling he had in the world !" " I mind me when he was a boy," said a very old man, with thin, white hair, and who leaned on two sticks; " I mind me when he was as pretty a boy as you'd see on a summer's day I He gathered nettle-tops and green yarbs (herbs) for my Sammy, as died of a waste ! Lord-a-me ! and he's dead, ye say !" " Ay, Neddy," said another, " dead, sure enough ! and his own brother, as one may say, the death of him !" " Hey ! hey !" returned the older man, " it's a wicked world we live in, a very wicked world !" " And say ye," asked a woman, " that this London lawyer, this Sir Thomas, is come to take possession of Stanton-Combe, in his own right?" " Never, never ;" returned the very old man, putting his two sticks into one hand, and turning his other on his hip, to enable him the better to look the speaker in the face ; " never, I say ; for it was all tied upon heirs male. But he's a bad man, that Thomas, as I've heard say, without conscience; and Anthony Sharpie's no better !" At that moment Sharpie was seen amongsi FAMILY AFFAIRS. 69 them; and those who thought he had not heard made' their bow, as to the satellite of the rising sun ; and they who believed the contrary, made the best of their way off, shrugging their shoulders. Presently after this encounter, Sharpie found old Bridget, who had volunteered to Mrs. Durant the carrying of a message to the undertaker and coffin-maker, in order that she might unburden herself of the news she was able to tell. Through her Sharpie learned how Madam Durant and the young master had quarrelled; not that Bridget had any direct communication with him, but as he stood within the inn yard, he listened to the gossip she held with a couple of old crones. « Misfortune's a-coming !" said Bridget; "we ve had nought but signs of late— coffins, and winding- sheets; and such a croaking of ravens, and screech- ing of owls ! Such things never bode ^ good ! Lauk-a-me ! such a night as I have had !" " And so, the old master is dead !" said one of the gossips. « Sure, is he ! replied Bridget, " and no won- der neither, so as he was turmoiled over night !" " Well, but Mrs. Bridget," asked the other, is it true you're going away at a minute's warn- in 0, i °" There is neither law nor justice in it 1" said the other. « Neither is there!" said Bridget; "and a team of horses won't move Madam, if it be not her will. But ye see, the old master has died lucky just bow; there must be time to bury him. Madam 70 FAMILY AFFAIRS. would raise heaven and earth, but she would have a burying; and a grand funeral we shall have !" " What ! the body laid in state, like the old Durants of former times ?" asked one old woman. " Sure," said Bridget; "they were getting the state-room ready when I left; and I have sent Thomas Doleman and all his people up, to take measure for the coffin, and to see to the hanging the walls. It will be a fine sight, I promise ye !" "Yes, yes," replied her companion; "I re- member, more nor forty years ago, how a body lay in state there; all hung with black cloth was the room, at seven shillings by the yard; and the funeral train reached from the Hall to the church; there were seven-and-fifty blood-relations, all on horseback, in black cloaks and hat-bands !" "Forty years ago!" interrupted the other; " that was seventy years ago ! It was the grand- father of him that is now dead, Walter Durant; him as the king sent into Germany: I was a young lass then !" " Oh, well!" returned the other, "but there will be no such funeral now. Things ar'n't as they were then !" " Lord bless you ! but it will be a handsome funeral, though," said Bridget, alarmed for the honour of the house ; " Madam will have it hand- some, were it only to spite 'em. There'll be the lying in state seven days, wax-lights burning, all the country bid; gloves, and scarfs, and hat- bands; burying-cake, and plenty of cold meat and drink I What more would ye have ?" FAMILY AFFAIRS. 71 All this Anthony Sharpie heard, and was con- vinced by it that the death was real; but as he was not in the habit of contradicting his patron, and Sir Thomas chose to believe it only a pre- tence in order to gain time, or to throw odium upon him, Sharpie likewise pretended to acquiesce, and promised to ascertain the fact, even by ob- taining, if needful, a sight of the body, dead or alive. After Richard Durant and his mother had parted in anger, as we related in our last chapter, he went to bed, and while there began to revolve various plans for his own conduct, independent of his mother. Sharpie and he had been boon com- panions in'London, and he flattered himself that he possessed influence with him, through which the orignal promise of his remaining on the estate might be secured. He determined also to try his influence with his uncle, especially as his resent- ment was strong against his mother; and he blamed her as the cause of all their troubles. " It was all the consequence," reasoned he, " of trusting important affairs to a woman; he would, he de- termined, take the management of everything into his own hands." His groom had brought him the news of his father's death, and that strengthened his determination still further. They could not be ejected from the premises while the corpse remained uninterred, and this would give him time; besides, by his death, he was legally master of all; no longer Mr. Richard, but Mr. Durant. Richard's plans were undefined, but all his wishes tended towards conciliation ; when, an hour 72 FAMILY AFFAIRS. after breakfast, he set out on his way to the Durant Arms. Midway, however, between the village and the Hall, he met Sharpie, who, as we have seen, had been despatched by Sir Thomas to ascertain the truth respecting the death of Lis brother. When Anthony Sharpie saw Richard approach- ing, he put on a solemn countenance, and affected a tone of condolence, saying that he was extremely sorry to hear of the event of the night; "but," added he. " the gentleman was old; the shock could not have been great to his family, though the time, certainly, was unlucky." Richard in his turn assumed an air of distance, and, with a voice much more subdued than com- mon, and which might have imposed upon one less skilled in worldly knowledge than Sharpie, said he was penetrated with sorrow for the loss of his father. " His father's death," he said, " had no doubt been caused by the violence of the last night; that he himself was overwhelmed by it; that his was a hard case, a cruel case ; and that he was a very ill-used man; especially as his mother had kept all latter transactions from his knowledge; but that he hoped he and his uncle might come to terms; that he did! And for his part, he would be glad to leave all in his uncle's hands, who was, he was sure, a man of honour." Sharpie looked into Richard's face with some curiosity; and he wondered how much of all this was really true. But Richard seemed to wait for Sharpie's answer, and he therefore spoke. " He had been sent up by Sir Thomas," h« FAMILY AFFAIRS. 73 said, to ascertain if the report were true; not that he himself doubted it for a moment, but Sir Thomas was supicious:" and Sharpie shrug- ged his shoulders, as much as to say, he did not approve of suspicion; " but, such being the case,"' he continued, " it would be extremely satisfactory if he could have a sight of the body." Richard felt half disposed to resent this as an insult; but as he was hoping to gain his own ad- vantage, he merely replied that Sharpie might see the body, and welcome, if it could do him anv good; and 'ed the way back to the house. Richard marshalled him up the grand stair-case to the state-room, for he had heard of his mother's design of* the grand funeral, and knew the body to be there. The house was profoundly still, like the house of death; no servants met them on the stairs, and even the hard nature of Sharpie felt as if his were a sacrilegious visit. The solitude and silence, however, of the house was not peculiar to this day: we know what a deserted place it was: but at this particular time the few inhabitants, with the exception of Elizabeth, were all met in one room, as we shall presently see. Mrs. Durant having conceived the idea of the lying in state, immediately set about preparations for it with all the energy of her character. Bridget and old Simon, and the two other servants, were ordered to attend her in the state-room, upon the lofty bed of which the corpse had just been laid, stretch( (1 on a board and covered with a sheet. Thomas Doleman, the undertaker, had been down; and, as Mrs. Durant wished to practise economy H 74 FAMILY AFFAIRS. at the same time that she made an imposing show, she determined to make use of every available article that the house contained, on the occasion. Now it happened, that on some former occasion of a costly funeral, a quantity of black cloth had been put by, as also a velvet pall, black plumes, and various other paraphernalia of costly mourn- ing. Thomas Doleman had engaged to do all that was requisite, and had returned to his own house for the purpose of preparation; in the mean time the lady and her attendants had ransacked the ancient stores of the family. In this room, and about this business, accordingly they were busied, when Richard and Anthony Sharpie entered. There were all lengths and breadths of cloth, dusty and moth-eaten, scattered about; and already had a hanging of black, in which three ominous rents were conspicuous, been fastened to the wall, as if in trial of its effect. The chairs were burdened with various articles of female mourning, part of the wardrobe of some grand- mother, or great-aunt, which this funeral search had now only brought to light. There was something ludicrous, and yet melancholy, in all these forlorn efforts at miserable grandeur, in the very presence of the senseless dead. There was a strange con- trast, too, in the eager business-like faces of the living, and the strong rigidity of the corpse, the outline of whose figure was visible under its linen covering. Had that body risen up and spoken, the con- sternation could not have been greater to the living, than that caused by the entrance of Richard and FAMILY AFFAIRS. 75 his companion. Mrs. Durant dropped the plumes she had been shaking, and experienced such a pang at her heart as a dagger's point might have occasioned, in the anguish of seeing her son violate the privacy of that chamber, in friendly alliance with their cunning enemy ; and, with a countenance in which surprise and anger were about equally blended, she advanced three steps to meet them. " Is it for your pleasure, Mr. Durant," said she, addressing her son, "that this man conies here? If it be, I have but one word for both of ye — begone !" " Mr. Sharpie would know of a certainty," said Richard, " that my father is dead. The body is here," said he to Sharpie, pointing to the bed, and going forward as if about to raise the covering. " Touch it at your peril ! lay finger on the. dead man, an' you dare !" exclaimed she, furiously "What am I to infer?" asked Sharpie, turning towards Richard : " that it is a mere feint?" " Suppose what you list !" replied the lady ; " but be sure of one thing — in three seconds you shall be pitched from the window. Simon! clear the rcom of this fellow !" said she to the strong old man, who, with nails and a hammer in his hand, stood by in gaping wonder. " Madam !" said Richard, taking hold of her, " stand by, and let Mr. Sharpie see the body ; stand by, or worse may come of it!" But Anthony Sharpie had seen enough; and, fearing that some violence might be done to his person, was already outside the door; and Richard, seeing him gone, followed also. < 6 FAMILY AFFAIRS. Sharpie waited for no apology, n<> explanation, but, hearing a step behind him, and not knowing exactly whether Richard was friendly or no, and apprehensive lest the lady's threat was about to be enforced, made his escape at full speed down the stairs, nor would have been overtaken at all, but at length he became bewildered with turnings to the right and to the left, and, between con- fusion and despair, faced about to see who pur- sued. Richard was half ready to laugh ; for while Sharpie assumed a tone of offended dignity, it was plain that he was almost frightened to death. He looked grave, however, and, remembering he had yet his own turn to serve, offered some apology for his mother's vehemence, gave the most solemn assurance of his father's death, which the other, however, was not at all inclined to doubt, and said he would accompany him to the inn, in order that he might have an interview with his uncle. The attendants wondered that no outbreak of indignation, or threat of vengeance, followed the departure of the intruders; but Mrs. Durant was suffering more intense agony of spirit than could vent itself in words. She mechanically took up the plumes she had thrown down, shook the dust from them, and went through the examination of cloth and velvet, but her head was no longer in the work; her earnestness and vivacity were gone. Insult and defiance had been thrown in her very teeth by the idolized being for whom she had cared, and toiled, and suffered, and for whom she could do even more than this yet ! Her very soul seemed sick within her. She gave her orders FAMILY AFFAIRS. 77 at random; one moment a thing was to be done, the next to be undone, till, perplexed and be- wildered, the servants talked to each other, won- dering what it meant. " Leave it, Simon, for the present," at length said the unhappy lady ; " close the shutters, and let the black candles be lighted !" " With your leave, madam," remarked Bridget, " common candles will do till the room is hung; no one will be admitted till all is finished." " Leave it," she replied, " leave it altogether, for the present. I will ring for you when I want you." The servants left her; and the strong woman, whose frame was like that of a man, and whose courage, and decision, and fortitude, could have borne her through any other trial and privation, wrung her hands and wept passionately. " Oh, my son !" she exclaimed, "how have I been deceived ! how have I been wounded by you ? I never thought to see this day, when I nursed you on my knees, when I carried you in my arms ! Oh, my little curly-headed Dick ! my beautiful boy, whom I loved so dearly, and watched over night and day, and toiled for as never mother did before ! Now I know what it is to be unfortunate ! now I know what it is to be wretched, and poor; for the loss of affection is worse than the loss of houses and land !" And again she wept, and even groaned aloud in the agony of her spirit. The singular demeanour of Mrs. Durant had excited the notice of her servants, and Bridget Hi 78 FAMILY AFFAIRS. hobbled into the parlour to relate it to Eliza- beth. " Lord, Miss !" began she, " something strange has happened to Madam !" " How ! what ?" exclaimed Elizabeth, terrified with a hundred fears. " Why, there is she taking on so in the state- room, where the master lies, as though her heart would break. I have been to the door three times, and you may hear her groaning outside; but it's all along of Mr. Richard!" " Poor mother !" said Elizabeth, " I will go to her." Elizabeth paused a moment ere she entered; and, as Bridget had said, the sounds of her mo- ther's grief were audible, and the kind-hearted girl rushed in, eager to comfort or aid her. Mrs. Durant sat on a couch in the room, with her face buried in her hands, and sending forth low groans which expressed deeper anguish than words. Elizabeth closed the door after her, but the sound did not rouse her; and, fearing that her mother might be displeased to have any witness of her emotion, she hastened to make her aware of her presence. " Dearest mother !" said she, touching her shoulder lightly, " dearest mother ! what ails you ? what can I do to comfort you ?" Mrs. Durant looked at her daughter like one roused from a lethargy, and inquired, in a stern voice, " Who sent for you, child ?" " I feared you were ill; I see you are unhappy: what can I do for you?" asked her daughter, with the utmost kindness of manner. FAMILY AFFAIRS. 76 ** What business have you, child, to think me inhappy ?" demanded the mother; " when I want you, I shall srnd for you." " Oh I" exclaimed Elizabeth, unappalled by her mother's anger, and excited to the deepest sym- pathy by her pale and sorrow-marked counte- nance, " oh ! that you would let me be with you I that you would receive kindness from me !" " When I want kindness from you," still re- turned her mother, " I will send for you : what I want now is to be alone." " May I send Richard to you ?" persisted Elizabeth. Mrs. Durant fixed her eyes sternly on her daughter, and replied, " I want neither one nor other of you. Have I not trouble and sorrow enough, without your adding to it?" " You have, dear mother!" returned Elizabeth, tears sta/ting into her eyes; "you have! indeed, you have ! and God knows, I would fain lessen it if I could." For one moment Mrs. Durant seemed touched by her daughter's tenderness, and mild tears filled her eyes; but the next, as if surprised at her own weakness, she repelled them, and replied coldly, " You cannot, child, you cannot do me the least good. Leave me, and send Bridget, and Simon, and the rest of them." Elizabeth obeyed; and Mrs. Durant, with wonderful self-command, collected herself, and stood again amid the paraphernalia of mourning. She gave her orders with precision; tatters in the cloth were mended, moth-eaten parts cut out, and, 80 FAMILY AFFAIRS. with the help of Thomas Doleman, before even- ing the walls had assumed their hangings of black. By the next night, black plumes nodded over the canopy of the bed, and the arms, properly emblazoned on a hanging of black velvet, adorned the bed's head ; the bed itself was converted into a kind of throne, on which the coffin, covered with black, was placed, and all around black drapery hung in sweeping folds to the floor; four tall black wax tapers stood at the four corners of the bed, ready to be lighted, and which were designed to cast a sombre illumination over the bed, leaving the rest of the apartment in stately and solemn gloom. All this occupied two whole days in the doing, but it wonderfully diverted Mrs. Durant's mind from its more immediate troubles; and, as during that time she never saw her son, she kept her heart with all its griefs locked up like a miser's treasure. We left Richard last on his way to the Durant Arms, to have an interview with his uncle. The interview was, of course, not satisfactory. It was in vain that he endeavoured to throw all the blame, and mismanagement, and misunder- standing, on his mother, or to obtain for himself either concession or good-will. Sir Thomas con- descended to no explanations, further than what Sharpie had given. He conceded only one iota in his nephew's favour, granting him one calendar month, until new-year's day, to bury his father, and to make sale of his effects. In vain poor FAMILY AFFAIRS. 81 Richard pleaded, threatened, stormed, and even tried to coax and flatter; Sir Thomas was im- moveable; afid his nephew was unpleasantly sen- sible that he stood before him as an inferior in intellect. '• Oh," thought the unfortunate young man, " if I could but have him up to fight it out with me, I could do; but, hang it, I am no hand at talking !" and, vexed and mortified, he was almost ready to cry. " On new-year's day," replied Sir Thomas, with the most provoking coolness, " I, or Mr. Sharpie, or both of us, will be down to take pos- session. I am not to be played with, young man; and now, as my carriage is at the door, I must beg you to detain me no longer." Richard walked out of the inn, and with his hands in his pockets stood to watch the departure of his uncle. His old friends of the village kept aloof from him, although they had often acknow- ledged him to be " a good sort of fellow, who never grudged a crown to make a man drunk !" But it had now got abroad that things were going wrong at the hall, and that crowns would not be so plentiful as they had been; therefore they were less solicitous for his notice. Sir Thomas was seen at the upper window of the inn, fur-coated up to the chin, and drawing on his gloves preparatory to descending to his carriage, which was now drawn up close to the door-stone. Richard beckoned one of his old cronies up to him. " Here, Timson," said he, taking half a guinea 82 , FAMILY AFFAIRS. out of his pocket, "give the old wolf a parting salute." Having said this, he walked deliberately up the church-yard side, still taking care not to lose sight of the Durant Arras. Timson perfectly under~ stood what he was expected to do; and, just as Sir Thomas issued from the inn-door, and was about to seat himself in his carriage, a volley of stones thundered about, shivered the glass of one of the carriage-windows, and even threatened the demo- lition of Sir Thomas's person. He seated himself, however, and Sharpie, having jumped in after him, the door was hastily closed, and the postillions, putting spurs to their horses, posted away, the out- riders coming after with equal speed. Shouts and hootings, the eloquence of the mob, pursued them down the street; proving, at all events, that Richard had stout partisans who, for money, if not for love, would take his part. He did not return home till late that night. He was so well pleased with the zeal of Timson and his other friends, that he determined to give them a day's drinking. All the village was, of course, agog about the strange things that had happened, and were about to happen, at the Hall; and as it was soon noised about that " Mr. Richard" was at the Durant Arms, everybody flocked there. Richard was that day very popular; and before night, everybody had sworn " to side with him through thick and thin," and to give Sir Thomas, let him come when he would, such a reception as THE FUNERAL. 83 should make him remember Stantcn-Combe to the latest day of his life. CHAPTER IX. THE FUNERAL. After Elizabeth had been repulsed in her at- tempt to comfort her mother, she anxiously wished for her brother's return, in the belief that what- ever disunion there had been between them, it would soon be made up, and that he, in fact, was the only person who could allay her natural anxiety and distress of mind. But Richard came not through that day, and it was with great satisfac- tion that she saw, before evening, her mother had regained her usual equanimity, and appeared so completely absorbed by the funeral preparations, as to have forgotten, at least in appearance, not only her own individual griefs, but the alarming crisis which was approaching in their worldly affairs. All this preparation for a costly funeral, for one who, in his lifetime, was so little regarded by the principal members of the family, seemed to her the height of folly, nay, almost like a mockery of the old man's memory. She ventured even to question her mother on the subject. " Was it," she asked, " what her father himself would have wished? And furthermore, as it was known to the whole country round what a quiet retired life he had led for years, nobody would expect to see 84 THE FUNERAL. him buried like the old Durants, who had held important offices in the county, and had been well known to everybody. She feared," she said, " they might look ridiculous in the eyes of their neighbours; and though that was 9 reason of small weight, when duty or moral principle were opposed to it, she, for her part, felt keenly now and she thought Richard would feel it too." " Child !" replied the mother, with a counte- nance almost of disdain, " you talk like youi father ! Is this a time, I pray you, to stoop down that we may be trodden on ! that we should let our enemies know the extent of their power to humble us ! No, no ; we will at least preserve our own self-respect!" " But," replied Elizabeth, " we cannot be showing self-respect by making ourselves ridicu- lous. God knows that I loved and honoured my father, but I would beg for him only a quiet burial. We never consulted him, in his latter years, how a single pound should be spent; and had we done so, he could have given us no counsel ; it is unseemly then, I think, to make for such a one a pompous funeral; especially," she added, after a pause, " when money is like to be short enough with us." " I will have a funeral," returned her mother, without noticing her arguments, " which shall not disgrace a Durant ! What ! shall it be said that we have not the means to bury our dead ?" " Never mind what is said," replied Elizabetn, amazed at herself for arguing, and at her mothei for permitting it; " let him be buried decently THE FUNERAL. 85 and quietly — that at least we owe him ; but we can show him no reverence by impoverishing the living, merely for senseless cost over his dead body." " You know nothing of what befits the credit of a family," returned her mother, who had only allowed her to argue, because she had no regard for her opinion ; " how should you ?" " I do not think Richard would advise this ex- pensive funeral, nor Lady Thicknisse, either," said Elizabeth. " Do not worry me to death I" returned Mrs. Durant, impatiently; "surely, I know what is right ! I will have, I say, a noble funeral, if I melt down the family plate, bit by bit ! I will bury my dead as a Durant ought to be buried, and I will gather about us our neighbours and connexions, and know at least who are our friends?" Elizabeth opposed her mother no further, but she sincerely hoped that something would occur to prevent a thing so absurd as this pompous funeral. Richard, as we have said, did not see his mother that day; and the next, attended by his groom, he set off for Darlington, to consult a lawyer and to order his own mourning. In the meantime, although Mrs. Durant was engaged so much by her funeral preparations, and although she had been so seriously displeased and grieved by her son's apparently friendly alliance with Sharpie, still she was full of thought and anxiety about him. She feared he had withdrawn I 86 THE FUNERAL. his confidence from her: the very idea of neglect and unkindness from him filled her soul with anguish. Then she excited herself by fears respecting him — vague apprehensions of she knew not what; and many times in the course of the day she exclaimed — " Oh, that he would but come! that I did but know where he was! that he was only safe from danger !" And many a time she went to the window, to see if he were visible in his homeward way. It was not till the third day that she heard he was gone to Darlington. " It was unkind," she said to herself; "heat least might have told me of his journey, had it only been to spare my anxiety !" Alas ! poor woman ! her son had never been taught to spare her anxiety; how then should he have thought of it at this moment? But spite of the many causes of uneasiness, the preparations for the funeral went on. Letters of invitation to all the kith and kin, even to the remotest connexion, were written and sent; the same likewise to all their neighbours, till the burial of Mr. Durant came as much to be talked of, far and near, as an election itself. The under- taker was very well pleased with the job, for it was many a long year since the Durants had made a great funeral, and the traditions of his family told of famous doings in this way; and good Thomas Doleman, be it known, was not remark- able for worldly wisdom, and overlooked the very important fact, that the Durants had sorely gone down in the world since then. The old state apartments, by Mrs. Durant's THE FUNERAL. 87 orders, were again opened and aired for use; fires were burning in every room, and three or four village women were employed to polish up the ancient furniture. To see all that was going on, it would have been imagined that the family had a life-long residence before them, instead of being on the sorrowful eve of departure for ever. " But it all will be right !" she would argue with herself; " for if it comes to a sale, things wiH only look all the better! But it never will come to that ! they shall drag mo out by force, before I leave !" For the twentieth time Mrs. Durant reckoned up who of her relations and her husband's — with all of whom, however, for these twenty years, there had been no intercourse — she might expect to honour the funeral. Somehow or other she persuaded herself that everybody would come ; and she gratified herself by the vision of a nume- rously attended funeral, a stately procession of hearse and mourning coaches, friends' and neigh- bours' carriages, and half the country on horse- back, winding down the hilly park-road to the village church. " It will show them" she said, " that we are respected, and have those who will do us honour!" — the them always meaning Sir Thomas Durant and Anthony Sharpie. On the fourth day after the death of Mr. Durant, Richard, who had heard at Darlington of the grand funeral and the proposed lying-in- state, although certainly he was not unaware of his mother's intention when he left home, wrote to 88 THE FUNERAL. her, decidedly forbidding it. " It was the most absurd thing she had ever done," he said, " and he now saw that it was high time he took the management of his affairs into his own hands, for that she was, like all other women, unacquainted with business, and quite unfit to be trusted with money." As a postscript to this dutiful letter he also added, 4i that he should not hold himself re- sponsible for any debts which might be contracted on this occasion." This was indeed a cruel blow; but another letter also arrived nearly at the same moment. We have not yet mentioned what, however, was the fact, that both Mrs. Durant and her daughter had written to Starkey, the one to Lady Thick- nisse, the other to her friend, Mrs. Betty, inform- ing them of the late melancholy and perplexing events. At the very moment, therefore, in which Mrs. Durant was reading her son's letter, she was informed that a messenger had arrived express from Starkey with letters. Mrs. Betty's was full of kindness and sympathy ; a comfortable letter, that did Elizabeth good, although it occasioned her many tears. Lady Thicknisse's, however, was the epistle of importance. Mrs. Durant, hurt and offended by the one she had received from Richard, tore open the one from her friend, hoping to find consolation and assurance in it. The letter was as follows : — " Starkey, December 4. " Dear Madam — Your letter has excited the most lively concern. I hope it is needless to say THE FUNERAL. 89 how deeply I sympathize with you. The loss of my esteemed friend, your husband, I trust, is his gain. God's will be done ! " What, however, is at this present moment of importance for you to know, I hasten to commu- nicate. Fortunately, my lawyer, Mr. Twisicdon, was with me when yours arrived, which I laid before him; and now enclose his opinion on the state of your affairs. I fear from this, that you have no chance against Sir Thomas Durant: you will see that he knows that gentleman well: what- ever he has done, he says, the law will bear him out in. I fear the law sanctions much that is unjust; and, moreover, which I greatly regret, he declares fhat you cannot resist the ejectment, hav- ing had Jegal notice to quit. " I need not say the regret I feel that your and my godson's affairs have fallen into such con- fusion. I fear, however, that my godson has not always been as discreet in his expenditure as he ought: I have beard of him both at York and Doncaster, which I regret. " What has urged me more especially to send off to you express is regarding the funeral. Con- sidering the private manner in which your good husband liv< d. I think a public funeral unadvised. Nothing, I believe, but the present agitation of your mind could have induced you to sanction such a proceeding- If it is my godson's doing, I can- not think high./ of his judgment. All needless cost, in the present state of his affairs, should be avoided: very few. and those only your im- mediate neighbours, need be invited, and for these I 2 90 THE FUNERAL. tbe expense would be moderate. But by no means let the body lie in state. Your doors are thus thrown open, and some of that lawyer's creatures will be getting in, whom you will find trouble in getting rid of again. " The urgency of the occasion must excuse my plain speaking. " I am, dear Madam, " Your friend and weil-wisher, " Susannah Thicknisse." The postscript to this letter ran thus : " Should there be a sale of the effects at Stanton-Combe, I should like that the pair of ebony cabinets, which stand in the great drawing-room, be purchased for me. Of course, they will be appraised ; 1 do not wish to give more than their value; but as I have an old friendship for the family, I may as well possess them as a stranger.'' Mrs. Durantwas staggered in her own opinion. Formerly, not heaven nor earth could have in- duced her to change a favourite opinion ; but she was not the woman she had been, and the very wavering of her judgment produced a depress- ing sensation. She felt like one at sea, without rudder or compass, and for the moment, forgetting Richard's letter, she wished he were there to counsel with her. Great was the amazement of the house when Mrs. Durant announced that the lying-in-state was not to be made public; and that no one was to be admitted to the house without her knowledge. The preparation for the funeral feast, however, THE FUNERAL. 91 went on as before; "for," said Mrs. Ourant, " they who are bid to the funeral must, of course, be received. But why cannot Dick come and look after these things himself, seeing that now I cannot do ought to please him ?" " What is come over Madam?" said Bridget to Simon, who was major-domo. " A sad waste of nails has there been," returned Simon, " to put up those black hangings ; seven- and-twenty score of ten-penny nails, and all of my own driving; and, after all, nobody coming to see it !" " And the candles that have been burning ever since," said Bridget. " And the wax-lights that were had for the show, and them never to be used," said Simon ; " and I warrant, Thomas Doleman won't take 'em back again !" " And all this scrubbing and rubbing, this mending and airing," enumerated Bridget ; " Lord- a-me ! and all to no purpose !" " Madam has never been herself since that night," remarked Simon, shaking his head ; : t's a sore thing losing of house and home !" " And the quarrel with Mr. Richard," re- turned Bridget ; " that cuts her up worse than aught else !" The eighth day after Mr. Durant's death was appointed for his funeral, and Richard returned on the evening of the sixth. Mrs. Durant had been consumed by the most painful anxiety dur- ing his absence, and the moment she heard his Voice her heart leapt with inexpressible affection ; 92 THE FUNERAL. yet, as he entered the room she assumed an air ol displeasure, greeting him with unusual coldness : for it was but right, she thought, to make him sensible of the respect he owed her; and his letter, certainly, had shown no regard to her feel- ings or her peace of mind. But Richard came in no mood to humble him- self. The lawyer whom he consulted at Darling- ton, and who was to follow him the next day, had assured him that his mother was the mainspring of all their troubles. So, in fact, she was, for she had sacrificed everything to Richard's supposed interest, and his reckless self-will ; but that was net the way they reasoned. And he had assured him also, as Mr. Twisledon had assured his mo- ther, that opposition to Sir Thomas Durant would produce no other effect than involving them in law, and swallowing up every sixpence they pos- sessed. He returned home, therefore, in the full spirit of his letter, resolved to be henceforth master of his own affairs, and full of contempt for women as managers of business. The first glance of his sullen countenance con- vinced his mother, that whatever might be the state of her wounded feelings, the present was not the moment to upbraid him. A complete reaction took place in her mind; and, not having been of late in his confidence, and knowing neither the state of his feelings, nor the cause of his present ill humour, she feared to say one word that might either wound or annoy him. A flood of affection passed over her soul, effacing every late vexation; and, with unwise zealousness to win his confidencei THE FUNERAL 93 bhe now overwhelmed him with little well-meant acts of kindness, every one of which operated ae a goad to his excited temper. " Bless my soul, madam !" sai'd he at length, as she urged him to the enjoyment of some ac- customed luxury, which he had refused with pet- tishness, " will you take from me the indulgence of my own freewill?" A few minutes afterwards, with a countenance full of contrite affection, she made another effort to oblige her wayward son. " I'll tell you what,' J said he, starting up and pushing her aside, " if you will not let me take my own course, in small things as well as great, I will leave this house, and you shall never see my face again !" Bitter tears were in Mrs. Durant's eyes, but she torcibiy repressed them ; bitter words, too, sprung to her lips, but she would not utter them, determined that nothing on her part should widen the breach between them. " Have patience with her, dearest brother !" said Elizabeth, starting up the moment he had spoken ; " say not anything, I beseech you, that you may afterwards repent of!" Poor Mrs. Durant sank into her chair and wept, for her daughter's words overcame her. " I am not likely to repent of what I do," said Richard. " It is women that do silly things ; and why does she pester me? I'm sure I would not have come back at all, if I'd known there would have been such a fuss !" " Speak kindly, Richard," whispered she, see« 94 THE FUNERAL. ing her mother's unwonted emotion, " for she ha many troubles to bear !" " So have I !" exclaimed he aloud, determined that his mother should hear all, " and troubles, too, of her bringing on !" " Richard ! Richard !" exclaimed his mother, starting up, and dashing aside the tears that blinded her eyes, " this I have not deserved ! God knows, if I could have died to save you I would ! and I wish I was now lying beside the corspe in yonder room, rather than have heard the words you have spoken !" " It would have been better if you had lain there," remarked Richard, coldly. " Just Heaven !" exclaimed the unhappy mo- ther, dropping into her chair, and wringing her hands, " what have I done to deserve this ?" Elizabeth stood beside her, without speaking, and Richard sat down to finish the supper which this dialogue had interrupted. An hour afterwards Richard seemed still to prolong his meal, and his mother still was seated in her chair ; not a word had been spoken. Eliza- beth felt as if she were an intruder, as if she per- haps prevented a reconciliation, or prevented her brother's offering atonement for his cruel words, and she retired to her own room. No sooner was she gone than Mrs. Durant again made an attempt to establish peace between them. But we will spare ourselves and our readers a relation of what followed. High words and THE FUNERAL. 95 hysterica! sobs were heard by old Bridget outside the door, and she also averred that Richard had struck his mother. Elizabeth, whose heart was depressed by the scene she had just witnessed, and by her own forlorn and melancholy prospects, although she retired to her own room, did not retire to bed. Long past midnight she heard her brother ascend hurriedly to his own chamber, the door of which he closed with violence. She listened to discover whether her mother also retired for the night; but as all remained still, and she well knew that only some deep cause would keep her up when Richard had left her, she stole softly down stairs to learn if she could render duty or service. She entered the room. Her mother sat with clenched hands, and countenance of concentrated misery, but there was neither tear in her eye, nor trace of tear on her cheek. " Mother ! dearest mother !" said Elizabeth. Mrs. Durant did not hear the words. "Dearest mother! speak to me!" exclaimed she, falling on her knees before her, and terrified by her immobility. " Speak!" and she caught hold of her hands. "Serpent! viper I" exclaimed Mrs. Durant, catching away her hands, and starting up. " Mother!" repeated Elizabeth, rising from her knees. " Go, child !" said she, fixing her eyes on her daughter with great severity, " go, I say !" " I will not go," replied Elizabeth, with ten- 96 THE FUNERAL. derness, and yet with firmness; " not till I know that it is not in a daughter's power to render service to a mother. It is the privilege of this most holy and tender of relationships to perform such a duty, and I demand this privilege from you ! Before Heaven, I demand it !" said Eliza- beth, again sinking upon her knees before her mother, and kissing her hand. " Grant it me, beloved mother !" she continued ; "confide in me; let me know your sorrows, that I may know how to comfort them." " You cannot, you cannot, child !" returned her mother. " It is not in mortal power to comfort me 1 I have suffered that which is without remedy !" " Say not so ; think not so 1" exclaimed her daughter. " You know how my father loved me ! Let me be to you what I was to him ! I should never be weary of performing my duty." " Rise, child, rise!" said Mrs. Durant; "urge nothing now; I am not in a state to bear it. Show your duty at least by leaving me ! God knows, I am a mother to be pitied !" " May He bless you and comfort you !" said the affectionate girl, weeping tears of sincerest sympathy ; " and, please Heaven ! the time will corns in which you shall receive my affectionate service !" She retired again to her chamber, and, in its silence and solitude, poured out her full heart to God. Mrs. Durant did not leave her own room THE FUNERAL. 9? through the whole of the next day, and Richard was busied with the Darlington lawyer, who had arrived that morning. The morrow was that on which the interment was to take place. What a relief poor Mrs. Durant found it, in the present state of her feel- ings, that some part of the funeral ceremony had been dispensed with ; and now even she w ished it could have been altogether private. She was not in spirits to encounter the bustle of many guests, and those family connexions with whom intimacy had now ceased. She felt as if she had, indeed, done a great folly; she feared that her son might betray want of respect, or want of confidence to- wards her before the funeral company. Elizabeth divined what her mother's feelings would be, and, greatly as she disliked the publicity of the funeral, determined to spare her as much as possible. Old Bridget, and Simon, and Thomas Doleman, wondered at her activity and fore- thought. " So as she fretted about him!" said Bridget; " who'd have looked for her to take thought about everything !" " She's better notions of things even than Madam," said Thomas Doleman, " and a very pretty way of speaking to a body !" " Well," said Simon, " I never saw Madam give . in so afore I but we shall have her in her tantrums when all's over !" The next morning Mrs. Durant roused herself with a desperate effort, to do all that might be needful on that trying day. She had not seen her K 98 THE FUNERAL. son since the night of his return; what, therefore, were his sentiments towards her, she knew not. She wished she could but catch a glimpse of his countenance, for on the first token of submission or contrition, on his part, she was prepared to receive him again into her soul. It Mas not, she felt, a time for disunion, and she listened, there- fore, for the sound of his footsteps, as he left his chamber, eager that, spite of what was past, she might make the first advance towards reconcilia- tion. But she listened in vain; and then, as the time went on, hoping that he was already down stairs, she went herself to the breakfast parlour. The undertaker had already arrived; and as she had a glimpse of the mutes standing outside the door, and perceived what an unusual stir and ceremony there was throughout the house, her very soal loathed it. When Elizabeth met her mother that morning, she was shocked at the alteration in her appearance. It was not alone the straight hair, and the widow's cap, but a change much more affecting even than that. The bright complexion was gone, and she looked pale, as if from the effects of severe illness; and there was an uneasy tremour about the mouth, that told of suffering of the heart. It seemed as if a few hours had done the work of years. " Surely," thought she, as she glanced at her mother, " surely, when he sees that face, he will be excited to kindness." Mrs. Durant sat, all ear and attention, secretly hoping, spite of all the means she had taken to secure a large attendance, that no one would come. It would be far better, she thought, to THE FUNERAL. 99 bear a slight from people, that in truth she cared nothing about, than be humiliated by her son before them. As to appealing to the congregated guests, even if half the country had assembled, against the aggressions of their kinsman, that was an idea that was quite gone. It all seemed like a chimera, and she wondered how so short a time had so completely changed not only her feelings but her power of action. At nine o'clock a dozen of neighbours, farmers and small landed proprietors, had arrived on their stout horses, to attend the body to the church. They had come partly out of curiosity, and were now drinking ale and eating cold beef in the steward's room, while the undertaker's men were busied with their scarfs and hatbands. In the meantime, innumerable were the notes of condolence and apology which had been sent in to excuse the non-attendance of all the various branches and connexions of the family, near and remote. There seemed no prospect, indeed, but of a small funeral. Poor Mrs. Durant ! she wished again that nobody had been asked ; felt very angry with them all, and thought, with a sigh, of all the funeral baked meats which nobody would come to eat. The slow tolling of the church-bell had been sounding all the morning, and groups of villagers stood at the corner of the road, by the church- yard wall, and about the Durant Arms, to witness the show. It was now two o'clock, the time fixe! for the moving off of the funeral procession. Elizabeth 100 THE FUNERAL. and her mother, both apparelled in their deep mourning, sat together in their morning room, but Richard, the chief mourner, had been seen by no one. The most intense anxiety filled Mrs. Durant's heart. She never felt so unfitted to combat difficulties before. Richard filled her with the deepest perplexity, yet she would not for the world, that any one should imagine it to be so; she even tried to think nothing of his absence. " He is busy," she said, " with his lawyer; he thinks nothing of time. Simon, tell your master what is the time; let him know that our good neighbours have arrived." The anxious face of Thomas Doleman next presented itself, to say that all was ready. Mrs. Durant herself knew it; for she herself had seen the coffin carried into the heaise, and the mourning coach drawn up to the door, and the dozen neighbours, hat-banded and scarfed, mounted upon their long-tailed horses. But she now saw far more than this : there were no less than eight carriages ready to take rank in the proces- sion; there was the Dickon's and the Prescott's Sir Thomas Wodom's, old General Merton's, and the Wilbore's ; Squire Waddifield's, and Sir Charles Blackiston's; and, besides these, a caval- cade of gentlemen, all men of reverence, hat- banded and scarfed ! She had no idea of all this ! It was really gratifying — it was kind ! and poor Mrs. Durant felt as if good days were returning, as she eyed this honourable array. The truth was, the death of poor old Mr. Durant, at the very moment of the deepest family THE FUNERAL. 101 troubles, had filled all hearts with sympathy. He had always been respected, and people would not, at such a time, withhold this small token of regard to his memory, particularly when it must be con- soling to the ruined family. On the contrary, those very persons, connexions of the family, upon whom Mrs. Durant had calculated most, were unwilling to show countenance to the dis- honoured and fallen branch, when, perhaps, they themselves might be helped to advance by the new branch, which was so greatly in the as- cendant. When Mrs. Durant saw that this funeral, after all, was likely to turn out an important affair, it roused her up at once to her usual energy. " What does the foolish man mean ?" said she ; " are we to be disgraced in the face of half the country ?" and, rushing out, she hasted to her son's room, and presented herself before him." " Dick !" said she, her eye flashing as she spoke, " am I to attend as chief mourner, or you ? The bewildered undertaker followed, with Richard's crape-bound hat in his hand, which he presented. " Pray-ye, Mr. Richard," said he, " do not keep 'em waiting ; there's every look of rain com- ing on ; and it makes such work with tilings !" Richard muttered something about the money that was spent, yet he put on his hat, and took up his new black gloves; and then, taking the arm of his friend, the lawyer, who met him at the door, without vouchsafing the slightest regard to his mother, they walked deliberately down the great k2 102 THE BREAKING UP stair-case, mounted the mourning-coach, and the funeral procession was put in motion. Mrs. Durant had the pleasure of witnessing such a funeral procession as would not have dis- graced the head of the family in its better days. It made, certainly, a very imposing appearance; and she sat down to pen a paragraph for the county papers, whereby she hoped to make it evident to Sir Thomas, in London, that they were not without honour among even their more in-* fluential neighbours. The farmers, and the undertaker's people, alone returned to dinner, and a jolly carouse was made, for there was no lack of eatables or drinkables As the important business of the day was now over, Mrs. Durant, finding that Richard was engrossed with his law friend, retired to her own room, and was seen of none of the household again that day. She had a new, although a petty source of annoyance — her new costume. The widow's cap and the bombazine very little suited one who had worn a riding-habit and a black silk caul for thirty years. She was almost disposed to forswear the new costume for the old. CHAPTER X. THE BREAKING UP OF A FAMILY. Elizabeth felt that nothing could be worse for them, a broken household as they were, with a gloomy and uncertain future before them, than OF A FAMILY. 103 the present want of unanimity. She despaired of gaining, all at once, the confidence of her mother; she resolved, therefore, to try what influence she had with Richard, and she anxiously wished for some favourable opportunity. The next morning, however, Richard himself opened the communication by telling her that she and her mother must look out for some place for themselves; for that, on the twentieth, the sale would commence, and he should want the house free of all encumbrance. Elizabeth was shocked at the unfeeling tone in which this communication was made, and she inquired if he had thought of any plan for them. His answer was simply, " No." " Remember, Richard," she replied, " that we are all fellow-sufferers; we must assist each other with counsel." Richard replied, that he had enough to do to think for himself. " Let us retain," said Elizabeth, " this com- fortable reflection, that through all our troubles we have acted with kindness and confidence one to another." " My patience !" exclaimed Richard, " and what good will that do !" " All," replied his sister; " for without affec- tion one for another, how tenfold forlorn are our prospects ! I am sure if we would be happy, we must cultivate a spirit of love and good under* etandiDg amongst ourselves." 104 THE BREAKING UP Richard said he wanted nothing but a good understanding with them. " Then," replied his sister, " kt your mother at least know what you are intending to do. We are in the most trying circumstances I" " The deuce we are !" was the reply. " And now, brother," said she, " I myselt will act according to what I recommend. I ask, earnestly and affectionately, of you my own bro- ther, what step do you counsel me to take ? I have had many little schemes for myself, but none exactly please me." " Oh! how should I know?" answered he; for he had never been taught to think for any one but himself. " Richard!" said his sister, the tears starting to her eyes, " I am the most forlorn of us all; you and my mother were always dear friends to each other; she loved you as she never loved me. I have lost my friend. Oh, brother! that you would but fill his place; that you would but let us love one another, and act in unison ! We are young," she continued, " and I think we might defy our troubles, if we loved each other; if we were a united family." Richard's silence showed that he was not pre- pared with an answer, and she asked — " Have you seen my mother to-day ?" "No!" he answered abruptly; "nor do I want !" " Will you give me then some message to carry to her ? some kind word or two ?" demanded his OF A FAMILY. 105 sister. " She looks ill, Richard, and I am sure she is unhappy ! Just say three or four kind words; — that you are busy or you would go and talk with her, or that you send your love to her." " Stuff!" returned Richard. " But now, do you understand me," resumed he; "did you under- stand what I said about having the house clear of you? I shall have the sale on the twentieth." Elizabeth sighed deeply, and then replied, "Yes, indeed, I understand you, and that again brings me to my argument; think for us, dearest brother; where shall we go? We have no home; that you know as well as I do !" "Oh! I'm sure I don't know !" returned he; but the tone in which these words were spoken seemed kind, and she pressed his hand to her lips, " I have thought sometimes," said she, " that I would go to the old school-master's till all this bustle is over; for then I should be at hand if I should be wanted, or if I could be of service either to you or mother. What a privilege it is," said the poor girl, with tears in her eyes, " to be of value and of use to somebody !" " Heaven knows!" she again resumed, "what a bitter thing it will be to me to leave this dear old house ! Oh, Richard, it is a hard case ! it is a cruel, cruel case ! and I do not wonder at your anger ! I and mother, liowever much we loved it, might naturally look to leave it sometime, but you never ! I love the house, and the old, deso- late gardens ; for, in my quiet way, I have had my pleasures, all the deeper, perhaps, for being quiet; and, thank Heaven ! come what will, I shall think 106 THE BREAKING UP of this sweet old home, and my poor, dear father, as Adam and Eve must have thought of the gar- den of Eden, and the angels that visited them there I" " It is a burning shame !" said Richard, " thai I am to be driven away thus from my own place!" " As a matter of law," said she, " I know no thing about it; but I suppose it is quite gone from us. " The old rascal !" exclaimed Richard, grind- ing his teeth ; " but — " and he shook his head without finishing his sentence. " I think," resumed Elizabeth, " it will be the death of mother !" " Pooh !" said Richard, " old women don't die so easily !" " Do not speak of her in this way," said his sister; " she has been a most devoted mother to you. You know not how much keener is an unkind word even than a sword's point ! and the present is not the time when we should increase our sorrows by unkindness to each other !" At that moment Mrs. Durant entered the room. Elizabeth wondered whether Richard noticed the change in her countenance; but he said nothing; he only looked doggedly into the fire. Elizabeth rose from her brother's side, and, offering a morning salutation, placed a chair for her mother. Mrs. Durant paid no regard what- ever to her daughter, but, going straight up to her son, presented her hand. The young man neither rose nor seemed dis- posed to obey. OF A FAMILY. 107 " I insist upon it I" said Mrs. Durant. " I ask it as no favour; I insist upon it! Foolish boy, I say, give me your hand ! I command you to let us be friends ! Far better would it have been for you to have gone down on your bended knees to me. than have thus compelled me to seek you ! Troubles have brought down my pride; and I, your mother, say to you, we will be friends !" Richard placed his hand ungraciously in his mother's, and she then sat down beside him. From this time there was an appearance, at least, of terms being kept between them. On one point, however, they differed. She wished to contest the' case with Sir Thomas at law, believing that Sharpie's promise to them was binding; or at least to oblige him to enforce the ejectment, which she thought would bring odium upon him. Richard's policy, however, was different; he had his law friend's opinion that it was vain to oppose Sir Thomas; Stanton-Combe had fairly passed into his hands; and with his money he had the means of bribing public opinion. Everything was in his favour, and Richard seemed willing likewise to go with the tide. He said, " he would sell all, stick and stone; turn everything into money; and, as to revenge, he would take it in another way !" Neither his mother nor his sister inquired in what way; and, as he did not tell them, rdjilher will we confide it to our readers. 108 CHAPTER XI. THE GREAT SALE BY AUCTION. Stanton-Combe was a fine old place. It was full of stately rooms, finished with carved wood- works, rich ceilings, and ornamental gilding, and filled with furniture of the most costly description; everything, it is true, was dimmed with neglect and disuse, but all were faithful and affecting chronicles of splendour and prosperity that had been. It was a melancholy thing to see the cold, hard-visaged men of business prying through their ancient rooms, and bringing, with unhallowed hands, as it seemed, all their secrets to light; ran- sacking cabinets, and diving into curiously inlaid presses, which had held, in trusty ward, the brocades, and the lavendered linen, and the rich lace of many a now forgotten lady. It was sor- rowful to see strangers, whose only object was " to turn a penny," examining old portraits of handsome men, graceful women, and round-faced merry children, the once happy and hopeful dwellers of the mansion, and rating them by their value as mere canvass and paint; to see curious and costly old relics, and works of art, which had once been the treasured possessions of some now forgotten master of the house, about to be dis- persed into a hundred different hands ! Elizabeth hardly ventured to think of what was going on, or of what lay before her, even in the THE GREAT SALE BY AUCTION. 109 near future. The revealing to vulgar and money- making people the secrets of the house; the throw- ing open of those disused chambers, which had been full of mystery to her childhood, and of melancholy interest to her more thoughtful years, seemed like the first act of a tragedy, in which preparation was made for all the dark work that was to follow — the final desolation and ruin of an old family. Little as the principal members of the family had of late years been held in esteem by their wealthier neighbours, a sentiment of pity filled the hearts of the kind, at least, and Elizabeth and her mother received unexpected and cordial in- vitations to partake the hospitalities and shelter ot their roof, until the present season of trouble was over, and their plans for the future were matured. There is a general sentiment of kindness and pity in human nature, let misanthropes say what they will; and the fountain in the arid desert is not more blessed and welcome, than such evidences of good feeling to the unfortunate and the un- happy. Mrs. Durant, however, adhered to her firsi avowal, that nothing less than absolute force should remove her from the place ; — in her own words, which she invariably used, " she would remain there while the roof stood !" Elizabeth would gladly have availed herself of the good-will of her neighbours, had not the necessity for her so doing been prevented by a letter from Mrs. Betty Thicknisse. This good lady had obtained L 110 THE GREAT SALI BY AUCTION. from her sister-in-law the favour of an invitation for her god-daughter. No sooner was the letter received than she began to make preparations for her journey, or, more properly, for her final departure. It was indeed a sorrowful task, but necessity in this case, as in many others, was a kind task-master: there was no time allowed for her to think; nor was it till she took her seat in the carriage, which had been thoughtfully sent for her, and drove down the avenue, and past the broken and decaying wall of the pleasance, that the full sense of its being a last departure came upon her. Who does not know, that has the least spark of segment in his soul, the melancholy import of those words — " for the last time !" Elizabeth felt them at that moment in their full force ; she was leaving the home of her childhood, the gra-ve of her father, for poverty and an uncertain dwell- ing among strangers. At the tu-a of the road, the fine old hoi"*% with its many details of ornamented gables, massy chimneys, and large bay windows, stood before her, at the head of its avenue. It had never looked so stately ; it had never felt so dear to her heart before; and the last view of the home of her fathers was taken through blinding tears. All was a scene of bustle and preparation. Richard and his man of business seemed to enter, body and soul, into the arrangements for the com- ing sale. Everywhere they might be met, with important faces and dusty coats, and with nvn at THE GREAT SALE BY AUCTION. Ill their heels, hastening to take down and to put up, and to present everything with its best face to the public; or, with writing materials in their hands, assisting others in preparing catalogues. The auctioneer, a sort of George Robins of those days, was now down; catalogues were printed, and the GREAT SALE BY AUCTION, of furniture, pictures, books, musical instruments, old china, wine, family-plate, and linen ; works of art, cabinets, inlaid wardrobes, splendid pier- glasses, &c.