George Meredith - Evan Harrington. Complete

‘I am bound to thank you for the interest you take in my son, my lady.’

‘Does it not quite suit your views, Mrs. Harrington?’ Lady Racial was surprised at the widow’s manner.

‘If my son had only to think of himself, my lady.’

‘Oh! but of course,’—the lady understood her now—‘of course! You cannot suppose, Mrs. Harrington, but that I should anticipate he would have you to live with him, and behave to you in every way as a dutiful son, surely?

‘A clerk’s income is not very large, my lady.’

‘No; but enough, as I have said, and with the management you would bring, Mrs. Harrington, to produce a modest, respectable maintenance. My respect for your husband, Mrs. Harrington, makes me anxious to press my services upon you.’ Lady Racial could not avoid feeling hurt at the widow’s want of common gratitude.

‘A clerk’s income would not be more than L100 a year, my lady.’

‘To begin with—no; certainly not more.’ The lady was growing brief.

‘If my son puts by the half of that yearly, he can hardly support himself and his mother, my lady.’

‘Half of that yearly, Mrs. Harrington?’

‘He would have to do so, and be saddled till he dies, my lady.’

‘I really cannot see why.’

Lady Racial had a notion of some excessive niggardly thrift in the widow, which was arousing symptoms of disgust.

Mrs. Harrington quietly said: ‘There are his father’s debts to pay, my lady.’

‘His father’s debts!’

‘Under L5000, but above L4000, my lady.’

‘Five thousand pounds! Mrs. Harrington!’ The lady’s delicately gloved hand gently rose and fell. ‘And this poor young man—‘she pursued.

‘My son will have to pay it, my lady.’

For a moment the lady had not a word to instance. Presently she remarked: ‘But, Mrs. Harrington, he is surely under no legal obligation?’

‘He is only under the obligation not to cast disrespect on his father’s memory, my lady; and to be honest, while he can.’

‘But, Mrs. Harrington! surely! what can the poor young man do?’

‘He will pay it, my lady.’

‘But how, Mrs. Harrington?’

‘There is his father’s business, my lady.’

His father’s business! Then must the young man become a tradesman in order to show respect for his father? Preposterous! That was the lady’s natural inward exclamation. She said, rather shrewdly, for one who knew nothing of such things: ‘But a business which produces debts so enormous, Mrs. Harrington!’

The widow replied: ‘My son will have to conduct it in a different way. It would be a very good business, conducted properly, my lady.’

‘But if he has no taste for it, Mrs. Harrington? If he is altogether superior to it?’

For the first time during the interview, the widow’s inflexible countenance was mildly moved, though not to any mild expression.

‘My son will have not to consult his tastes,’ she observed: and seeing the lady, after a short silence, quit her seat, she rose likewise, and touched the fingers of the hand held forth to her, bowing.

‘You will pardon the interest I take in your son,’ said Lady Racial. ‘I hope, indeed, that his relatives and friends will procure him the means of satisfying the demands made upon him.’

‘He would still have to pay them, my lady,’ was the widow’s answer.

‘Poor young man! indeed I pity him!’ sighed her visitor. ‘You have hitherto used no efforts to persuade him to take such a step,—Mrs. Harrington?’

‘I have written to Mr. Goren, who was my husband’s fellow-apprentice in London, my lady; and he is willing to instruct him in cutting, and measuring, and keeping accounts.’

Certain words in this speech were obnoxious to the fine ear of Lady Racial, and she relinquished the subject.

‘Your husband, Mrs. Harrington—I should so much have wished!—he did not pass away in—in pain!’

‘He died very calmly, my lady.’

‘It is so terrible, so disfiguring, sometimes. One dreads to see!—one can hardly distinguish! I have known cases where death was dreadful! But a peaceful death is very beautiful! There is nothing shocking to the mind. It suggests heaven! It seems a fulfilment of our prayers!’

‘Would your ladyship like to look upon him?’ said the widow.

Lady Racial betrayed a sudden gleam at having her desire thus intuitively fathomed.

‘For one moment, Mrs. Harrington! We esteemed him so much! May I?’

The widow responded by opening the door, and leading her into the chamber where the dead man lay.

At that period, when threats of invasion had formerly stirred up the military fire of us Islanders, the great Mel, as if to show the great Napoleon what character of being a British shopkeeper really was, had, by remarkable favour, obtained a lieutenancy of militia dragoons: in the uniform of which he had revelled, and perhaps, for the only time in his life, felt that circumstances had suited him with a perfect fit. However that may be, his solemn final commands to his wife, Henrietta Maria, on whom he could count for absolute obedience in such matters, had been, that as soon as the breath had left his body, he should be taken from his bed, washed, perfumed, powdered, and in that uniform dressed and laid out; with directions that he should be so buried at the expiration of three days, that havoc in his features might be hidden from men. In this array Lady Racial beheld him. The curtains of the bed were drawn aside. The beams of evening fell soft through the blinds of the room, and cast a subdued light on the figure of the vanquished warrior. The Presence, dumb now for evermore, was sadly illumined for its last exhibition. But one who looked closely might have seen that Time had somewhat spoiled that perfect fit which had aforetime been his pride; and now that the lofty spirit had departed, there had been extreme difficulty in persuading the sullen excess of clay to conform to the dimensions of those garments. The upper part of the chest alone would bear its buttons, and across one portion of the lower limbs an ancient seam had started; recalling an incident to them who had known him in his brief hour of glory. For one night, as he was riding home from Fallow field, and just entering the gates of the town, a mounted trooper spurred furiously past, and slashing out at him, gashed his thigh. Mrs. Melchisedec found him lying at his door in a not unwonted way; carried him up-stairs in her arms, as she had done many a time before, and did not perceive his condition till she saw the blood on her gown. The cowardly assailant was never discovered; but Mel was both gallant and had, in his military career, the reputation of being a martinet. Hence, divers causes were suspected. The wound failed not to mend, the trousers were repaired: Peace about the same time was made, and the affair passed over.

Looking on the fine head and face, Lady Racial saw nothing of this. She had not looked long before she found covert employment for her handkerchief. The widow standing beside her did not weep, or reply to her whispered excuses at emotion; gazing down on his mortal length with a sort of benignant friendliness; aloof, as one whose duties to that form of flesh were well-nigh done. At the feet of his master, Jacko, the monkey, had jumped up, and was there squatted, with his legs crossed, very like a tailor! The imitative wretch had got a towel, and as often as Lady Racial’s handkerchief travelled to her eyes, Jacko’s peery face was hidden, and you saw his lithe skinny body doing grief’s convulsions till, tired of this amusement, he obtained possession of the warrior’s helmet, from a small round table on one side of the bed; a calque of the barbarous military-Georgian form, with a huge knob of horse-hair projecting over the peak; and under this, trying to adapt it to his rogue’s head, the tricksy image of Death extinguished himself.