Thaddeus of Warsaw Part 17

"There goes," thought he, "in that lowly and feeble frame, as generous and n.o.ble a spirit: as ever animated the breast of a princess! Here, Nanny," said he, glancing his eye over the paper, "there is the gold, with my thanks; and tell your grandmother I am astonished at her economy."

This affair over, the count was relieved of a grievous load; and turning the remaining money in his hand, how he might replenish the little stock before it were expended next occupied his attention.

Notwithstanding the p.a.w.nbroker's civil treatment, he recoiled at again presenting himself at his shop. Besides, should he dispose of all that he possessed, it might not be of sufficient value here to subsist him a month. He must think of some source within himself that was not likely to be so soon exhausted. To be reduced a second time to the misery which he had endured yesterday from suspense and wretchedness, appeared too dreadful to be hazarded, and he ran over in his memory the different merits of his several accomplishments.

He could not make any use of his musical talents; for at public exhibitions of himself his soul revolted; and as to his literary acquirements, his youth, and being a foreigner, precluded all hopes on that head. At length he found that his sole dependence must rest on his talents for painting. Of this art he had always been remarkably fond; and his taste easily perceived that there were many drawings exhibited for sale much inferior to those which he had executed for mere amus.e.m.e.nt.

He decided at once; and purchasing, by the means of Nanny, pencils and Indian ink, he set to work.

When he had finished half-a-dozen drawings, and was considering how he might find the street in which he had seen the print-shops, the recollection occurred to him of the impression his appearance had made on the p.a.w.nbroker. He perceived the wide difference between his apparel and the fashion of England; and considering the security from impertinence with which he might walk about, could he so far cast off the relics of his former rank as to change his dress, he rose up with an intention to go out and purchase a surtout coat and a hat for that purpose, when catching an accidental view of his uniform, with the star of St. Stanislaus on its breast, as he pa.s.sed the gla.s.s, he no longer wondered at the curiosity which such an appendage, united with poverty, had attracted. Rather than again subject himself to a similar situation, he summoned his young messenger; and, by her a.s.sistance, furnished himself with an English hat and coat, whilst with his penknife he cut away the embroidery of the order from the cloth to which it was affixed.

Thus accoutred, with his hat flapped over his face and his great-coat wrapped round him, he put the drawings into his bosom, and about eight o'clock in the evening walked out on his disagreeable errand.

After some wearying search, he at last found Great Newport Street, the place he wanted; but as he advanced, his hopes died away, and his fears and reluctance re-awakened. He stopped at the door of the nearest print-shop. All that he had suffered at the p.a.w.nbroker's a.s.sailed him with redoubled violence. What he presented there possessed a fixed value, and was at once to be taken or refused; but now he was going to offer things of mere taste, and he might meet not only with a denial, but affronting remarks.

He walked to the threshold of the door, then as hastily withdrew, and hurried two or three paces down the street.

"Weak, contemptible that I am!" said he to himself, as he again turned round; "where is all my reason, and rect.i.tude of principle, that I would rather endure the misery of dependence and self-reproach than dare the attempt to seek support from the fruits of my own industry?"

He quickened his step and started into the shop, almost fearful of his former irresolution. He threw his drawings instantly upon the counter.

"Sir, you purchase drawings. I have these to sell. Will they suit you?"

The man took them up without deigning to look at the person who had accosted him, and turning them over in his hand, "One, two, three, hum; there is half-a-dozen. What do you expect for them?"

"I am not acquainted with the prices of these things."

The printseller, hearing this, thought, by managing well, to get them for what he liked, and throwing them over with an air of contempt, resumed--

"And pray, where may the views be taken?"

"They are recollections of scenes in Germany."

"Ah!" replied the man, "mere drugs! I wish, honest friend, you could have brought subjects not quite so threadbare, and a little better executed; they are but poor things! But every dauber nowadays sets up for a fine artist, and thinks we are to pay him for spoilt paper and conceit."

Insulted by this speech, and, above all, by the manner of the printseller, Thaddeus was s.n.a.t.c.hing up the drawings to leave the shop without a word, when the man, observing his design, and afraid to lose them, laid his hand on the heap, exclaiming--

"Let me tell you, young man, it does not become a person in your situation to be so huffy to his employers. I will give you a guinea for the six, and you may think yourself well paid."

Without further hesitation, whilst the count was striving to subdue the choler which urged him to knock him down, the man laid the gold on the counter, and was slipping the drawings into a drawer; but Thaddeus, s.n.a.t.c.hing them out again, suddenly rolled them up, and walked out of the shop as he said--

"Not all the money of all your tribe should tempt an honest man to pollute himself by exchanging a second word with one so contemptible."

Irritated at this unfeeling treatment, he returned home, too much provoked to think of the consequences which might follow a similar disappointment.

Having become used to the fluctuations of his looks and behavior, the widow ceased altogether to tease him with inquiries, which she saw he was sometimes loath to answer. She now allowed him to walk in and out without a remark, and silently contemplated his pale and melancholy countenance, when, after a ramble of the greatest part of the day, he returned home exhausted and dispirited.

William was always the first to welcome his friend at the threshold, by running to him, taking hold of his coat, and asking to go with him up stairs. The count usually gratified him, and brightened many dull hours with his innocent caresses.

This child was literally his only earthly comfort; for he saw that in him he could still excite those emotions of happiness which had once afforded him his sweetest joy. William ever greeted him with smiles, and when he entered the kitchen, sprang to his bosom, as if that were the seat of peace, as it was of virtue. But, alas! fate seemed adverse to lend anything long to the unhappy Thaddeus which might render his desolate state more tolerable.

Just risen from a bed of sickness, he required the hand of some tender nurse to restore his wasted vigor, instead of being reduced to the hard vigils of poverty and want. His recent disappointment, added to a cold which he had caught, increased his feverish debility; yet he adhered to the determination not to appropriate to his own subsistence the few valuables he had a.s.signed as a deposit for the charges of his rent. During a fortnight he never tasted anything better than bread and water; but this hermit's fare was accompanied by the resigned thought that if it ended in death, his sufferings would then be over, and the widow amply remunerated by what little of his property remained.

In this state of body and mind he received a most painful shock, when one evening, returning from a walk of many hours, in the place of his little favorite, he met Mrs. Robson in tears at the door. She told him William had been sickening all the day, and was now so delirious, that neither she nor his sister could keep him quiet.

Thaddeus went to the side of the child's bed, where he lay gasping on the pillow, held clown by the crying Nanny. The count touched his cheek.

"Poor child!" exclaimed he; "he is in a high fever. Have you sent for Mr. Vincent?"

"O, no; I had not the heart to leave him."

"Then I will go directly," returned Thaddeus "there is not a moment to be lost."

The poor woman thanked him. Hastening through the streets with an eagerness which nearly overset several of the foot-pa.s.sengers, he arrived at Lincoln's-Inn-fields; and in less than five minutes after he quitted Mrs. Robson's door he returned with the apothecary.

On Mr. Vincent's examining the pulse and countenance of his little patient, he declared the symptoms to be the small-pox, which some casualty had repelled.

In a paroxysm of distress, Mrs. Robson recollected that a girl had been brought into her shop three days ago, just recovered from that frightful malady.

Thaddeus tried to subdue the fears of the grandmother, and at last succeeded in persuading her to go to bed, whilst he and Nanny would watch by the pillow of the invalid.

Towards morning the disorder broke out on the child's face, and he recovered his recollection. The moment he fixed his eyes on the count, who was leaning over him, he stretched out his little arms, and begged to lie on his breast. Thaddeus refused him gently, fearing that by any change of position he might catch cold, and so again r.e.t.a.r.d what had now so fortunately appeared; but the poor child thought the denial unkind, and began to weep so violently, that his anxious friend believed it better to gratify him than hazard the irritation of his fever by agitation and crying.

Thaddeus took him out of bed, and rolling him in one of the blankets, laid him in his bosom; and drawing his dressing-gown to shield the little face from the fire, held him in that situation asleep for nearly two hours.

When Mrs. Robson came down stairs at six o'clock in the morning, she kissed the hand of the count as he sustained her grandson in his arms; and almost speechless with grat.i.tude to him, and solicitude for the child, waited the arrival of the apothecary.

On his second visit, he said a few words to her of comfort, but whispered to the count, while softly feeling William's pulse, that nothing short of the strictest care could save the boy, the infection he had received having been of the most malignant kind.

These words fell like an unrepealable sentence on the heart of Thaddeus. Looking on the discolored features of the patient infant, he fancied that he already beheld its clay-cold face, and its little limbs stretched in death. The idea was bitterness to him; and pressing the boy to his breast, he resolved that no attention should be wanting on his part to preserve him from the grave. And he kept his promise.

From that hour until the day in which the poor babe expired in his arms, he never laid him out of them for ten minutes together; and when he did breathe his last sigh, and raised up his little eyes, Thaddeus met their dying glance with a pang which he thought his soul had long lost the power to feel. His heart seemed to stop; and covering the motionless face of the dead child with his hand, he made a sign to Nanny to leave the room.

The girl, who from respect had been accustomed to obey his slightest nod, went to her grandmother in the shop.

The instant the girl quitted the room, with mingled awe and grief the count lifted the little corpse from his knee; and without allowing himself to cast another glance on the face of the poor infant, now released from suffering, he put it on the bed, and throwing the sheet over it, sunk into a chair and burst into tears.

The entrance of Mrs. Robson in some measure restored him; for the moment she perceived her guest with his handkerchief over his eyes, she judged what had happened, and, with a piercing scream, flew forward to the bed, where, pulling down the covering, she uttered another shriek, and must have fallen on the floor had not Thaddeus and little Nanny, who ran in at her cries, caught her in their arms and bore her to a chair.

Her soul was too much agitated to allow her to continue long in a state of insensibility; and when she recovered, she would again have approached the deceased child, but the count withheld her, and trying by every means in his power to soothe her, so far succeeded as to melt her agonies into tears.

Whilst she concealed her venerable head in the bosom of her granddaughter, he once more lifted the remains of the little William; and thinking it best for the tranquillity of the unhappy grandmother to take him out of her sight, he carried him up stairs, and laid him on his own bed.

By the time he returned to the humble parlor, one of the female neighbors, having heard the unusual outcry, and suspecting the cause, kindly stepped in to offer her consolation and services. Mrs. Robson could only reply by sobs, which were answered by the loud weeping of poor Nanny, who lay with her head against the table.

When the count came down, he thanked the worthy woman for her benevolent intentions, and took her up stairs into his apartments.

Pointing to the open door of the bedroom, "There, madam," said he, "you will find the remains of my dear little friend. I beg you will direct everything for his interment that you think will give satisfaction to Mrs. Robson. I would spare that excellent woman every pang in my power."

All was done according to his desire; and Mrs. Watts, the charitable neighbor, excited by a kindly disposition, and reverence for "the extraordinary young gentleman who lodged with her friend," performed her task with tenderness and activity.

"Oh! sir," cried Mrs. Robson, weeping afresh as she entered the count's room, "Oh, sir, how shall I ever repay all your goodness? and Mrs. Watt's? She has acted like a sister to me. But, indeed, I am yet the most miserable creature that lives. I have lost my dearest child, and must strip his poor sister of her daily bread to bury him. That cruel Dr. Vincent, though he might have imagined my distress, sent his account late last night, saying he wanted to make up a large bill, and he wished I would let him have all, or part of the payment.