Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“Mama, Mama, wake up!” William Henry echoed, eyes too full of shock to produce tears. “Mama, wake up and I will hug and kiss you! Please, please wake up!”

But Peg lay so inanimate that no pinch or prick could rouse her.

“It was a stroke,” said Cousin James-the-druggist, summoned.

“Impossible!” cried Richard. “She ain’t old enough!”

“Young folk can have strokes, and they are always of this kind-a sudden scream of pain, then unconsciousness and death.”

“She cannot be dead,” said Richard stubbornly. How could Peg be dead? She was a part of him. “No, she cannot be dead.”

“Believe me, Richard, she is dead. All signs of life are gone. I have held a mirror to her mouth, and it has not clouded. I have put my wooden cone on her chest, and heard no heartbeat. She has lost her irises,” said Cousin James-the-druggist. “Accept God’s will, Richard. Let us take her upstairs and I will lay her out.”

That he did with Mag in attendance, washing her, dressing her in her Sunday gown of eyelet-embroidered pink cambric, rouging her lips and cheeks, curling her hair and piling it up in the latest fashion, fitting her Sunday-best high-heeled shoes on stockinged feet. Her hands were folded on her breast and her eyes had been closed from the very beginning; she looked peacefully asleep and barely twenty years old.

Richard sat beside her, William Henry alongside him so that he could not see his son’s face. Could he, it would break him, and that would not benefit either of them. The room was bright with lamps and candles which would not be allowed to go out until she was put into her coffin and carried in the funeral sledge to St. James’s for the burial service in two days’ time. This was, for want of a better description, a natural death. All the family from far and near would come to pay their respects, kiss the still kissable mouth, commiserate with the widower, then descend to the tavern and partake of refreshments. Nothing as eerie and outlandish as a wake would be held; in Protestant Bristol, death was coped with soberly and somberly.

Richard sat the long hours of day and night away, joined by various Morgans; for once no snores emanated through the flimsy partition. Just muffled sobs, murmurs of comfort, sighs. No one slept save William Henry, who cried himself into a restless slumber. The shock had been so sudden that Richard felt numbed, but beneath the layers of pain and grief slowly bubbling up he was horrified to find a core of bitter resentment: if you were going to die, Peg, why did you not do so before I invested my money? Then I could have taken William Henry to live in Clifton and been rid of the reek of rum. Been my own man.

On the second night and in the coldest marches of the small hours William Henry appeared barefoot in his nightshirt and came to sit with Richard. They had kept the room as cold as so many candles and lamps allowed, so the still figure on the bed looked as serene and beautiful as she had at the moment the laying out was finished. Richard rose and went to fetch a thick blanket and two pairs of stockings, draped the one about his son’s body and put the others on his feet.

“She looks so happy,” said William Henry, wiping at his tears.

“She was very happy at the instant she died,” Richard said, throat controlled, eyes dry. “She smiled, William Henry.”

“Then I must try to be happy for her, Dadda, must I not?”

“Yes, my son. There is nothing to fear in such an unexpected, happy death. Mama has gone to Heaven.”

“I miss her, Dadda!”

“So do I. That is natural. She has always been here. Now we have to get used to living without her, and that will be hard. But never forget that she looks happy. As if nothing nasty has touched her. Because nothing nasty has, William Henry.”

“And I still have you, Dadda.” The blanket-shrouded form edged close; William Henry put his curly head on his father’s arm and hiccoughed. “I still have you. I am not a norphan.”

In the morning Cousin James-of-the-clergy interred Margaret Morgan, born in 1750, dearly beloved wife of Richard Morgan and mother of William Henry, next to her daughter, Mary. As it was the end of January, there were no flowers, only evergreens. Richard did not weep, and William Henry seemed to have cried himself into acceptance. Only Mag sobbed, as much for her niece as for her daughter-in-law. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. That is life.

The deathof his mother drew William Henry more tightly to his father, but his father was strapped with a job he worked at six days a week from dawn to dusk, which left only Sunday and a few snatched bedtime minutes for William Henry. The distillery was no gunsmithy, and Thomas Cave no Tomas Habitas. Special terms of employment were for William Thorne alone, who would disappear with impunity for sometimes hours on end, then return looking smug. Richard noticed that whenever Thorne did absent himself, Thomas Cave would be there waiting anxiously for his return-yet not in anger. Rather, in an eager apprehension. Puzzling. Had Richard been less preoccupied with his private worries and sadnesses, he would undoubtedly have seen more and come to some conclusions, but work was a solace only if he applied himself to it wholly.

The distillery saw an occasional visitor, the chief of whom was the Excise Man. William Thorne always showed the inspector around personally, and disapproved of observers.

The other frequent caller apparently had no business being in the distillery beyond friendship with Thorne; an odd relationship between two men who could surely have little in common. John Trevillian Ceely Trevillian was rich, foppish, and monumentally silly. His wigs were white as snow with starch powder and he tied them with naught save black velvet; his vacuous countenance was painted and patched; he wore embroidered velvet coats and lavish waistcoats; his heels were so high that he tittuped along with the aid of a clouded amber cane; and he exuded a perfume so strong it overpowered even the smell of rum.

Naturally Thorne performed no introductions on the occasion of Mr. Trevillian’s first visit after Richard started at Cave’s, but Ceely, as Thorne called him, paused in front of the new worker and eyed him in some appreciation. Apparently he enjoyed bare and sinewy forearms, thought Richard sourly when Mr. Trevillian, having looked his fill, tripped off in Thorne’s wake. He knew well enough who John Trevillian Ceely Trevillian was: the elder son of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Trevillian of Park Street, the same wealthy couple who had been robbed by a highwayman outside their own front door. A Cornish family with large interests in Bristol commerce, and related by blood to a very ancient clan of London merchants named Ceely who had been prominent since the twelfth century. This Ceely, all of Bristol knew, was a bachelor of questionable sexual tastes, an idle and brainless fribble completely eclipsed by his younger brother.

Several further visits by Mr. Trevillian caused Richard to doubt Bristol’s judgment; that silly, whinnying, vapid manner of his concealed a brain both shrewd and intelligent. He knew a great deal about distilling, and a great deal about business. The ruse of idiocy was extremely effective: as Mr. Trevillian stood around the Exchange looking a simpleton, those in his vicinity did not bother to lower their voices when they talked of business deals in the making. And perhaps in consequence lost out to Mr. Trevillian.

To round the matter of Mr. Ceely Trevillian off, in April he appeared arm-in-arm with Mr. Thomas Cave. Ah! thought Richard. Ceely has a financial interest in this place-must have, to see old Tom Cave smarm and grovel so. Yet Ceely was not on the books, else Dick would have mentioned the fact; he was a sleeping partner who provided nothing beyond capital when it was needed, and thereby paid no taxes.