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Page 51
Charles Adams was from home when it arrived, and his wife, knowing the
handwriting, and having made a resolution never to open a letter "from
that branch of the family," did not send it after her husband "lest it
might tease him." Ten days elapsed before he received it; and when he
did, he could not be content with writing, but lost not a moment in
hastening to the address. Irritated and disappointed that what he
really had done should have been so little appreciated, when every
hour of his life he was smarting in one way or other from his
exertions--broken-hearted at his daughter's blighted health and
happiness--angered by the reckless wildness of one nephew, and what
he believed was the idleness of another--and convinced that Rosa's
fearful step was owing to the pampering and mismanagement of her
foolish mother--Charles Adams satisfied himself that, as he did not
hear to the contrary from Mary, all things were going on well, or at
least not ill. He thought as little about them as he possibly could,
no people in the world being so conveniently forgotten (when they are
not importunate) as poor relations; but the letter of his favourite
niece spoke strongly to his heart, and in two hours after his return
home he set forth for the London suburb from whence the letter was
dated. It so chanced, that to get to that particular end of the
town, he was obliged to pass the house his brother had occupied so
splendidly for a number of years; the servants had lit the lamps, and
were drawing the curtains of the noble dining-room; and a party of
ladies were descending from a carriage, which prevented two others
from setting down. It looked like old times. "Some one else," thought
Charles Adams, "running the same career of wealth and extravagance.
God grant it may not lead to the same results!" He paused, and looked
up the front of the noble mansion; the drawing-room windows were open,
and two beautiful children were standing on an ottoman placed between
the windows, probably to keep them apart. He thought of Mary's
childhood, and how she was occupied at that moment, and hastened
onward. There are times when life seems one mingled dream, and it is
not easy to become dispossessed of the idea when some of its frightful
changes are brought almost together under our view.
"Is Miss Adams at home?" inquired her uncle of a woman leaning against
the door of a miserable house.
"I don't know; she went to the hospital this morning; but I'm not sure
she's in; it's the second pair back; it's easy known, for the sob has
not ceased in that room these two nights; some people do take on so"--
Charles Adams did not hear the concluding sentence, but sought the
room; the door would not close, and he heard a low sobbing sound from
within; he paused, but his step had aroused the mourner--"Come in,
Mary; come in; I know how it is," said a young voice; "he is dead;
one grave for mother and son--one grave for mother and son! I see your
shadow, dark as it is; have you brought a candle? It is very fearful
to be alone with the dead--even one's own mother--in the dark."
Charles Adams entered the room; but his sudden appearance in the
twilight, and evidently not knowing him, overcame the girl, his
youngest niece, so much, that she screamed, and fell on her knees by
her mother's corpse. He called for lights, and was speedily obeyed,
for he put a piece of gold in the woman's hand. She turned it over,
and as she hastened from the room, muttered, "If this had come sooner,
she'd not have died of starvation or burdened the parish for a shroud;
it's hard the rich can't look to their own."
When Mary returned, she was fearfully calm. "No, her brother was not
dead," she said; "the young were longer dying than those whom the
world had worn out; the young knew so little of the world, they
thought it hard to leave it;" and she took off her bonnet, and sat
down; and while her uncle explained why he had not written, she looked
at him with eyes so fixed and cold, that he paused, hoping she would
speak, so painful was their stony expression; but she let him go
on, without offering one word of assurance of any kind feeling or
remembrance; and when she stooped to adjust a portion of the coarse
plaiting of the shroud--that mockery of "the purple and fine linen
of living days"--her uncle saw that her hair, her luxuriant hair, was
striped with white.
"There is no need for words now," she said at last; "no need. I
thought you would have sent; she required but little--but very little;
the dust rubbed from the gold she once had would have been riches:
but the little she did require she had not, and so she died; but
what weighs heaviest upon my mind was her calling so continually on
my father, to know _why_ he had deserted her: she attached no blame
latterly to any one, only called day and night upon him. Oh! it was
hard to bear--it was very hard to bear."
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