University of Virginia Library

32. CHAPTER XXXII.

Those were the days when servants waited on their masters, not with lip-loyalty
alone, but with heart-service; when the dependent was not looked upon as a mere hireling,
to be considered only with reference to the work done and the wages paid; nor
the employer regarded solely as the dispenser of food and raiment, to be cheated as
much, and obeyed as little as practicable; which, I fear will be found the case too often,
despite the much vaunted superiority and intelligence of these modern times. Charles,
who had lived in the household of Mark Selby from his boyhood, did not, therefore,
immediately rush down to tell every member of the family, from the maitre d'hotel and
house-keeper down to the marmiton and scullery-maid, how Major Wyvil had slain old
Master Selby; but taking into consideration the extremely delicate situation of Alice,
and her entirely unprotected situation—having first laid the body decently on a couch
and covered it with the long red-colored cloak which the good gentleman had worn
while living—he went down stairs and called up his fellow-servant, who, like himself,
had been born at Woolverton, and had never known any other master. Desiring him
to remain with the body and suffer nobody to enter, lest Mistress Alice should learn
what had passed too soon, he went off instantly to Henry Chaloner's lodgings in the
Rue Royal, and, telling him all that had occurred, precisely as it had occurred, alike
without exaggeration or diminution of the truth, entreated him to come up forthwith to
the Hotel de Gondi. Shocked as he was and pained by this intelligence, there needed
no entreaty to hurry Chaloner's proceedings; he was already up and dressed, when
the man was admitted to his presence, haggard, and pale, and panic-stricken—for the
excitement which had nerved him to his duty, in the first instance, had wholly passed
away—and, after hearing his sad tale, and asking him a few pertinent questions, he put
on his cloak and high-crowned hat, and bidding two or three of his own most trusty
men to buckle on their swords and follow him, took his way to the scene of the terrible
catastrophe.

“You have done well—very well,” he said, “Charles, exceeding well; had you
not strictly obeyed what my poor cousin told you, much evil would have come of it.
You are quite sure that you have not mentioned it to any one that Major Wyvil was in
your master's room this morning?”

“I promised master that I would not, General Henry,” said the man, tears streaming
down his face—“promised him just before he went to heaven; and do you think I
would break my word to him, and he looking down and hearing me?”

“Indeed, Charles, I do you not so much wrong; I only feared that in the haste and
terror of the moment, you might have let it out incautiously to some of your fellow-servants.”

“No, General Henry, no; I did nothing in haste, and I have seen no one this morning
but Anthony, who is now with the body, and he knows nothing of it.”

“And you are certain that no one saw him enter?”

“No one at all; nor go out either, General.”

“So far at least, all is well. Then, mark me, Charles—poor Master Selby was
quite right, it would go near to kill Mistress Alice did she ever know what hand Major
Wyvil had to do in your master's death. Therefore, my good fellow, hold steadily to
your story—tell the truth only—add nothing, but quietly omit all mention of the cavalier.

Say you called Master Selby at his usual hour, and saw him arise and begin to
dress himself, left him to do some other work, and upon your return found him as you
have told me. Now, do you understand me perfectly?”

“Perfectly, General,” the man replied; “and you may trust me—I will do as you
desire.”

They had by this time reached the house, and all the servants of the establishment
being at length on foot, Chaloner sent a message to Madame de Gondi, saying he
would like to speak with her, as soon as might be convenient; and then bidding his
servants wait for him in the great hall, took his way, quietly and sadly, to the chamber
of his departed kinsman. It is a bitter and heart-chilling scene at all times, and under
circumstances the most favorable—the dwelling-room of a dead person! tenanted only
by the cold and senseless clay of him who, but a little while ago, rendered it gay and
lightsome by his living presence. The chair whereon he sat—the pen with which he
wrote yet standing in the ink, as he perhaps left it—the favorite book with its leaf
turned down at the favorite passage—the garments—the very gloves, perhaps, which he
so lately wore, retaining still the mould of the recent hand that never more may fill
them! all these, and fifty other little accessories too trivial to be noted or remembered,
contribute to make up at all times a dark and frightful picture. But it was a far sadder
and more terrible array of circumstances that met the eye of Chaloner—all, all those
were there; the book—the very Epictetus—treating of restraint and patience under
wrong—which he had, probably, been reading, to school his spirit for that fatal meeting—
lay on the board, with all the other well-known volumes that employed the good
scholar's studious leisure; but, there among his books, and on the tapestried wall, and
on the Persian carpet, glared the dark clots of life-blood! while, outstretched, pale and
livid on the couch, with the stout serving-man holding the cold stiff hand, and weeping
over it with all but woman's fondness, lay all the mortal part of the wise and gentle
student!

“This is a sad sight!” said Chaloner, with difficulty restraining his own tears. “He
was a good man; we will trust he is now with the blessed. Now leave me, honest
friends—I would be here alone with him for the last time. Do not go down, but wait
beside the door till I come forth to ye.” His words were instantly obeyed; and then,
kneeling beside the body—“Thou art gone from us,” he exclaimed, “my more than
friend—my father! “thou art gone from us, happy to go at this time!” and burying his
head in the vestments of his dead kinsman, he prayed long and fervently; and when
he arose, although his air was sorrowful and chastened, it was composed and firm.
“Heaven give me strength,” he said, “to go through with this painful duty.” With
these words he left the chamber; and telling the two men to watch, and alter nothing in
the position of the furniture or the body, until the police judge should be called with
the physicians to survey it, he went to break the heavy tidings to Madame de Gondi,
and to concert with her the means of disclosing them to Alice. The former he found
almost prepared for what he had to tell her; for she declared to him, while mentioning
the conversation that had passed between them the last evening, that there had been
so strange an alteration in the whole manner, tone, and appearance of Mark Selby, as
almost to satisfy her that his mortal term was rapidly approaching; and it was with a
feeling almost amounting to pleasure, that he heard her express her conviction that
Alice, after the first sudden grief, would bear the blow with resignation, and even look
on it as a release for her dear father from worse and far more grievous suffering.

“It was but last night she said to me—speaking of her own coming dissolution,
which she foresees as certainly as we do—that she should go hence with the regret
alone, to leave the old man her survivor; so I am sure, good friend, that she will not be
grieved by this beyond her power to bear. Now, General,” she added, “I will write
forthwith to my kind friend, the Bishop de Lisieux, and pray him to see his majesty,
and procure the remission of the odious droits d'aubain, by which you know all personal
properties of any foreigner who dies here becomes forfeit to the crown. Do you
send for the Judge of the Quartier and Monsieur Pallu, the great surgeon, and let us

have the investigation over before she knows aught of it. Remember, she has no suspicion
that her father knows anything of what passed in Paris. It will be better far
to leave her in ignorance—think you not so?”

“Oh! surely,” replied Chaloner; “she must not for the world know that he died in
the agony of grief and passion, nor that her recreant lover had any hand in it. I have
already written to England to resign my public duties, and when the funeral is over I
will persuade her to return home to Woolverton. New scenes may give new tone to
her mind, and she may recover.”

“Never!” said Henriette—“never! her end is nearer than we think for. She never
will see England, and she knows it.”

“Think you so?” he said, “indeed, think you so? Oh! this is very terrible—God's
judgments, of a truth, are all inscrutable—how else should this one villain work all this
agony and ruin, and go unwhipped of justice!”

Nothing more was said at that time—both parties hastening away to perform their
sad duties; and, for awhile, the necessity of occupation and exertion overpowered the
keenness of their present grief. Before noon, however, all was arranged—the investigation
had been held; and nothing material or suspicious having been elicited from the
servants, it was decided by the judge that he had died, as we should now say, by the
visitation of God—and accordingly, the permission for the funeral was issued in due
form. The king returned a gracious message, remitting instantly the forfeiture, accompanied
by kind inquiries. The scene of death was cleansed of its fearful attributes;
the corpse laid out and robed in the vesture of the grave; the chamber darkened from
without, and an old English clergyman—many Episcopal dignitaries having been forced
to fly the Presbyterian persecutions of their own land—summoned to do the last sad
offices of his religion—to render “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the mortal part of his
respected countryman. The day was far advanced, however, before Madame de Gondi
again met Chaloner; and when she did so, it was to request his presence in the sick
room of Alice.

“She bore it, as I told you I believed she would, most christianly—most nobly:
there was a burst of acute grief at the first, but soon she became quite calm and contented.
`I shall be with him,' she said, `very soon—I am happy that it is so—he would
have pined and been very wretched had I gone before him. We shall soon meet—I
feel it—yea! with a humble confidence, I know it—in blessed habitations, never again
to sorrow, or be severed.' She wishes now exceedingly to see the body, and confer
with you respecting the funeral. There is, you know, some difficulty. Our people—our
canaille I mean of this good city, are by no means too tolerant; and I fear if we should
seek to bury him with pomp, there might be rioting and insults.”

“Oh, that is easily arranged,” said Chaloner—“nothing more easily. Good De
Granville will perform the rites here privately, with none to witness them except ourselves
and his servants. The coffin—I have ordered one of lead, for he will be removed
to England shortly—can be conveyed in your carriage to your private vault at midnight—
can that not he managed?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied; “I will give orders for it now—but would you let her see
the body?”

“Assuredly,” said Chaloner; “why not, I pray you? she would never be contented
if she did not. If you will take me to her chamber I will support her thither—it is but
a step.”

“Oh, she is strong enough to walk; I only feared its effect on her mind.”

“You do not know her mind as I do, dear lady,” said Henry; “no hero has a firmer
or a higher! Come, let us go to her.”

Alice was seated in a large easy chair, when they went in to see her; dressed in a
close gown of white muslin, which scarcely showed more delicately pure than her
transparent skin, with the redundant tresses of her beautiful brown hair concealed by a
plain cap of lawn. Upon a little table at her elbow, there lay a flask of some stimulating
perfume, and an open Bible; and near to these stood a glass pitcher full of water, with

a Venetian goblet. She had been weeping, as could be readily perceived; for her eyelids
were inflamed and slightly swollen, and all her features, even to the lips, were as
pale as living flesh can be, but perfectly resigned, and calm, and gentle. She stood up
as they entered and put out her hand to Chaloner, who raised it quietly to his lips; and
she could feel, as his mouth pressed it, a warm large tear drop upon its tender surface.
For a moment she was quite overcome, and sinking back into her chair, covered her
face with her handkerchief; but in less time than could have been expected, she
removed it from her features, and spoke in her natural voice.

“Oh! Henry, this is very sad—this is very sad and terrible! That he should have
gone hence, whose whole life has been nothing but one act of kindness and attention to
others—with no one to allay his sufferings—no one to hold his dying head—to listen to
his last words!” and she again burst into tears, even at the images she had herself
conjured up.

Chaloner waited till the paroxysm was over, and then said—“It is very sad, Alice—
quite sad enough without our conjuring up additions to make it sadder, and more
terrible. You may be sure he suffered little or nothing of mere pain; for he was quite
well a little time before, and all was over in ten minutes. Besides, he had some one to
hold his head, and mark his dying words, and save them for his fond survivors; for,
although you or I were not there, as doubtless would have been sweetest to him, his
faithful servant Charles was with him, and tells us of so Christian and so calm a parting
as few, the best of men, may hope for. His last thought, except one, was of you; his
last message, `that he died blessing you;' and then it seemed to Charles that he
received, or fancied he received, some heavenly summons; for, starting to his feet,
with eyes, and arms, and hopes all heavenward, he cried aloud—“I come!”—and I
think that, without presumption or impiety, we may believe him even now to be with
Him who called him from this scene of trial and of sorrow. There was the sweetest
and most placid smile I ever witnessed on that benevolent pale face—such smiles mark
not the faces of the dead who die not just and happy!”

She listened calmly and with profound attention while he spoke, and seemed to muse
deeply after he had finished, but she still wept, though there was nothing violent or passionate
in the character of her grief; and Chaloner again said—

“I do not tell you not to weep, Alice, for that would be irrational, and I should
therefore be sorry that it were the case; but I do tell you not to mourn as one who has
no consolation, for you must recollect that your dear father had already long passed the
ordinary term of human life—that he retained all his faculties, all his enjoyments to the
last—and that, had he lived much longer, he must in the course of events, have been
subject soon to those sad ailments and afflictions which are peculiar to extreme old age.
There is, therefore, perhaps as much cause to rejoice as to mourn for him, who has only
exchanged doubt for certainty—mortality for everlasting bliss!”

“I know it, Henry—I know it,” she replied; “sorrow is selfish ever, perhaps more
selfish than joy even—and though I know that by his easy and not untimely death, he
has escaped not only these things which you have enumerated, but much acute and
poignant sorrow, that must ere long have broken on him, and of which he passed away
in happy ignorance—still it is hard, very hard and bitter, to part from one who has so
loved and cherished us from our birth upward; on whose face we have never seen a
frown—from whose dear voice we have never heard a tone that was not all benignity
and kindness;” and with the words her eyes again overflowed, and she continued for
some little time incapable of speaking; while Henry and her kind hostess kept silence
in reverence and regard for her feelings. “I am better—I shall be better now,” she
said after a while, as if relieved by her tears—“and firmer. Come with me, Henry—I
would look upon him—would take leave of him here; soon, I trust—soon again to meet
him where there be no more partings.”

“You are strong enough, Alice?” he said, in a tone of inquiry; “if so, I am quite ready
to attend you—but nerve yourself, dear girl, for it is as you say, a sad and painful sight!”

“No, Henry!” she made answer,” the sight of a dear father can in no case be
painful—let us go!”

Chaloner gave her his arm immediately, and conducted her to the little study where
the event had taken place, and where the body lay, clothed in the habiliments of the
tomb—the face covered with a linen napkin—the two serving men, who had followed
him from his distant house, watching in tears beside the dead. They rose up gently
as their young mistress entered, and stole with noiseless steps out of the room—feeling,
with a delicacy rare to their rude though honest natures, that grief such as Alice's
should have its vent in solitude. She entered with a step so steady, and a mien so
composed and tranquil, that Chaloner gazed on her in amazement—one little shudder
shook her slight figure for a moment, as her eye fell upon the motionless and rigid outlines
of that dear form; but she made no pause, nor did the transient shiver again
move her, but she walked straight forward to the couch whereon he lay, and there
stood still, gazing on him with a tearless eye, but with the shadows of many memories
fleeting across her eloquent features. Chaloner stood beside her in deep silence, not
all unmixed with awe; for there was something almost terrible in the appearance of the
fair pale girl—so slight, so frail, so spiritual, in her evanescent beauty—so still and
passionless, that she seemed scarcely more alive than that on which her eyes were fixed
immovably, until she made a gesture as if she would have the face uncovered; when
he stretched forth his hand and removed the napkin from the countenance of the dead.
It was indeed as he had said, perfectly calm and placid; and withal, it possessed an air
of bland and benignant majesty, which gave an air of almost supernatural beauty to the
white lips, and their aquiline features. There was a sweet smile still lingering round
the mouth, and it indeed seemed impossible that anything of pain or passion should
have disturbed the last moments of one, whose expression was so lovely. And this
was probably the case—that in the little space that intervened between the gust of
wrath that proved too violent for the fragile body, and the actual dissolution, the permanent
and real character of the man had overcome the temporary conflict, and that he
had indeed died happy.

“Yes,” said Alice, after she had gazed upon him quietly till her eyes were so dimmed
by the moisture which welled into them constantly, that she could no more see the features—“yes,
it is beautiful—almost divine! Dear, dearest father! happy, indeed, and
blameless was thy life—if anything of mortal mould can be called blameless; and, God
be praised for it! thy death was happy. Farewell—farewell! and if, as I believe, thy
spirit looks down from above on her whom thou so truly and so tenderly didst love, and
hears the words I utter, pardon—oh! pardon me the many cares and troubles I have
given thee. Farewell—farewell!” and she stooped over him, and pressed her lips to
the clay-cold brow. “Farewell! My moan is made—my tears shall no more flow. I
shall go to thee, my father, and that right soon; but thou shalt not return to me.” And
with the words, she took the napkin from the hands of Chaloner, and fixing one more
long and wistful look on the unconscious lineaments—one more last kiss upon the icy
brow—she spread it gently over him—turned away suddenly, as if she could not trust
herself to look again, took Henry's arm, and glided from the darkened chamber.

Beyond the threshold of the door, she passed the servants who had been watching;
and raising her eyes to their faces, she said, with a melancholy smile, “I thank you
very truly, my good friends; and God, who forgets no good or grateful deed, will certainly
reward you, for that you have not forgotten him who was kind to us all, and a
father while he was yet here. Go in and watch with him: this last sad duty will ere
long be over.”

That very evening, all was over—that very evening, in the same small room where
he had passed the most of his days since he had lived in Paris, and where he had met
his end, his body was consigned to its last tabernacle—the cold coffin; and there, with
some of those about him, whom, through a long and innocent life, his presence had filled
ever with a sentiment of joy—none, indeed, who had known him truly, save Chaloner
and Alice, and the servants who had followed him across the sea; although Madame
de Gondi and all her household were assembled—the meek old clergyman performed
the exquisite and touching service appointed by the church of England; and thence at

the dead of night was he conveyed by Henry, only with the sacristan and the two English
servitors, to the vault where he was to rest, until the time should come when he
might be removed to his native land, and gathered to the long home of his fathers.