Mistress and Maid Part 46

There was no time to be lost; she determined to speak to her master at once.

The time she chose was when she brought down little Henry, who was now always expected to appear, and say, "Dood morning, papa," before Mr. Ascott went into the city.

As they stood, the boy laughing in his father's face, and the father beaming all over with delight, the bitter, almost fierce thought, smote Elizabeth, Why should Peter Ascott be standing there fat and flourishing, and poor Tom dying? It made her bold to ask the only favor she ever had asked of the master whom she did not care for, and to whom she had done her duty simply as duty, without, until lately, one fragment of respect.

"Sir, if you please, might I speak with you a minute before you go out?"

"Certainly, Mrs. Hand. Any thing about Master Henry? Or perhaps yourself? You want more wages? Very well. I shall be glad, in any reasonable way, to show my satisfaction at the manner in which you bring up my son."

"Thank you, Sir," said Elizabeth, curtseying. "But it is not that."

And in the briefest language she could find she explained what it was.

Mr. Ascott knitted his brows and looked important. He never scattered his benefits with a silent hand, and he dearly liked to create difficulties, if only to show how he could smooth them down.

"To get a patient admitted at the Consumption Hospital, is, you should be aware, no easy matter, until the building at Queen's Elm is complete. But I flatter myself I have influence. I have subscribed a deal of money. Possibly the person may be got in in time. Who did you say he was?"

"Thomas Cliffe. He married one of the servants here, Esther--"

"Oh, don't trouble yourself about the name; I shouldn't recollect it.

The housekeeper might. Why didn't his wife apply to the housekeeper?"

The careless question seemed hardly to expect an answer, and Elizabeth gave none. She could not bear to make public Tom's misery and Esther's shame.

"And you say he is a s...o...b..ry man? That is certainly a claim. I always feel bound, somewhat as a member of Parliament might be, to do my best for any one belonging to my native town. So be satisfied, Mrs. Hand; consider the thing settled."

And he was going away; but time being of such great moment, Elizabeth ventured to detain him till he had written the letter of recommendation, and found out what days the application for admission could be received. He did it very patiently, and even took out his purse and laid a sovereign on the top of the letter.

"I suppose the man is poor; you can use this for his benefit."

"There is no need, thank you, Sir," said Elizabeth, putting it gently aside. She could not bear that Tom should accept any body's money but her own.

At her first spare moment she wrote him a long letter explaining what she had done, and appointing the next day but one, the earliest possible, for taking him out to Chelsea herself. If he objected to the plan, he was to write and say so; but she urged him as strongly as she could not to let slip this opportunity of obtaining good nursing and first rate medical care.

Many times during the day the thought of Tom alone in his one room--comfortable though it was, and though she had begged the landlady to see that he wanted nothing--came across her with a sudden pang. His face, feebly lifted up from the pillow, with its last affectionate smile, the sound of his cough as she stood listening outside on the stair head, haunted her all through that sunshiny June day; and, mingled with it, came ghostly visions of that other day in June--her happy Whitsun holiday--her first and her last.

No letter coming from Tom on the appointed morning, she left Master Henry in the charge of the house-maid, who was very fond of him--as indeed he bade fair to be spoiled by the whole establishment at Russell Square--and went down to Westminster.

There was a long day before her, so she took a minute's breathing s.p.a.ce on Westminster Bridge, and watched the great current of London life ebbing and flowing--life on the river and life on the sh.o.r.e; every body so busy and active and bright.

"Poor Tom, poor Tom!" she sighed, and wondered whether his ruined life would ever come to any happy ending, except death.

She hurried on, and soon found the street where she had taken his lodging. At the corner of it was, as is too usual in London streets, a public house, about which more than the usual number of disreputable idlers were hanging. There were also one or two policemen, who were ordering the little crowd to give way to a group of twelve men, coming out.

"What is that?" asked Elizabeth.

"Coroner's inquest; jury proceeding to view the body."

Elizabeth, who had never come into contact with any thing of the sort, stood aside with a sense of awe, to let the little procession pa.s.s, and then followed up the street.

It stopped; oh no! not at that door! But it was; there was no mistaking the number, nor the drawn-down blind in the upper room--Tom's room.

"Who is dead?" she asked, in a whisper that made the policeman stare.

"Oh! n.o.body particular; a young man, found dead in his bed; supposed to be a case of consumption; verdict will probably be, 'Died by the visitation of G.o.d!' "

Ay, that familiar phrase, our English law's solemn recognition of our national religious feeling, was true. G.o.d had "visited" poor Tom; he suffered no more.

Elizabeth leaned against the door-way, and saw the twelve jurymen go up stairs with a clatter of feet, and come down again, one after the other, less noisily, and some of them looking grave. n.o.body took any notice of her, until the lodging house mistress appeared.

"Oh, here she is, gentlemen. This is the young woman as saw him last alive. She'll give her evidence. She'll tell you I'm not a bit to blame."

And pulling Elizabeth after her, the landlady burst into a torrent of explanation; how she had done her very best for the poor fellow; how she listened at his door several times during the first day, and heard him cough, that is, she thought she had, but toward night all was so very quiet; and there having come a letter by post, she thought she would take it up to him.

"And I went in, gentlemen, and I declare, upon my oath, I found him lying just as he is now, and as cold as a stone."

"Let me pa.s.s; I'm a doctor," said somebody behind; a young man, very shabbily dressed, with a large beard. He pushed aside the landlady and Elizabeth, till he saw the latter's face.

"Give that young woman a chair and a gla.s.s of water, will you?" he called out; and his authoritative manner impressed the jurymen, who gathered around him, ready and eager to hear any thing he could say.

He gave his name as John Smith, druggist's a.s.sistant; said that the young man who lodged up stairs, whose death he had only just heard of, had been his patient for some months, and was in the last stage of consumption. He had no doubt the death had ensued from perfectly natural causes, as he explained in such technical language as completely to overpower the jury, and satisfy them accordingly. They quitted the parlor, and proceeded to the public house, where, after a brief consultation, they delivered their verdict, as the astute policeman had foretold, "Died by the visitation of G.o.d;" took pipes and brandy all round at the bar, and then adjourned to their several homes, gratified at having done their duty to their country.

Meantime, Elizabeth crept up stairs. n.o.body hindered or followed her; n.o.body cared any thing for the solitary dead.

There he lay--poor Tom! almost as she had left him; the counterpane was hardly disturbed, the candle she had placed on the chair had burned down to a bit of wick, which still lay in the socket. n.o.body had touched him, or any thing about him, as, in all cases of "Found dead," English law exacts.

Whether he had died soon after she quitted him that night, or whether he had lingered through the long hours of darkness, or of day-light following, alive and conscious perhaps, yet too weak to call any one, even had there been any one he cared to call--when, or how, the spirit had pa.s.sed away unto Him who gave it, were mysteries that could never be known.

But it was all over now; he lay at rest with the death smile on his face. Elizabeth, as she stood and looked at him, could not, dared not weep.

"My poor Tom, my own dear Tom," was all she thought, and knew that he was all her own now; that she had loved him through every thing, and loved him to the end.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Elizabeth spent the greatest part of her holiday in that house, in that room. n.o.body interfered with her; n.o.body asked in what relation she stood to the deceased, or what right she had to take upon herself the arrangements for his funeral. Every body was only too glad to let her a.s.sume a responsibility which would otherwise have fallen on the parish.

The only person who appeared to remember either her or the dead man was the druggist's a.s.sistant, who sent in the necessary medical certificate as to the cause of death. Elizabeth took it to the Registrar, and thence proceeded to an undertaker hard by, with whom she arranged all about the funeral, and that it should took place in the new cemetery at Kensal Green. She thought she should like that better than a close, noisy London church yard.

Before she left the house she saw poor Tom laid in his coffin, and covered up forever from mortal eyes. Then, and not till then, she sat herself down beside him and wept.

n.o.body contested with her the possession of the few things that had belonged to him, which were scarcely more than the clothes he had on when he died; so she made them up into a parcel and took them away with her. In his waistcoat pocket she found one book, a little Testament, which she had given him herself. It looked as if it had been a good deal read. If all his studies, all his worship of "pure intellect," as the one supreme good, had ended in that, it was a blessed ending.

When she reached home Elizabeth went at once to her master, returned him his letter of recommendation, and explained to him that his kindness was not needed now.

Mr. Ascott seemed a good deal shocked, inquired from her a few particulars, and again took out his purse, his one panacea for all mortal woes. But Elizabeth declined; she said she would only ask him for an advance of her next half-year's wages. She preferred burying her old friend herself.

She buried him, herself the only mourner, on a bright summer's day, with the sun shining dazzlingly on the white grave stones in Kensal Green. The clergyman appeared, read the service, and went away again.