Mr. Damerel did not die for twenty-four hours after this. People do not get out of the world so easy. He was not to escape the mortal restlessness, “the fog in his throat,” any more than others; and the hours were slow and long, and lingered like years. But at last the rector came to an end of his wondering, and knew, like all the illuminati before him who have learned too, but are hushed and make no sign. It is a strange thought for mortals to take in, that almost every death is, for the moment at least, a relief to those who surround the dying. The most intolerable moment is that which precedes the end, and most of as are thankful when it is over. I need not enter into the dismal hush that fell upon the pleasant rectory, nor say how the curious sun besieged the closed windows to get into the house once so freely open to the light; nor how, notwithstanding the long interval of illness which had banished him from common view, the shady corner under the lime-trees, where Mr. Damerel’s chair and round table still stood, wore a look of piteous desolation, as if he had left them but yesterday
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All this is easily comprehensible. The servants cried a little, and were consoled by their new mourning; the children wept bitterly, then began to smile again; and two poor clergymen, with large families, grew sick with anxiety as to who should have Dinglefield, before our rector had been dead a day (neither of them had it, you may be sure, they wanted it so much). When the news was known in the parish, and especially on the Green, there was a moment of awe and emotion very real in its way. Most people heard of it when they were first called, and thought of it with varying degrees of impression till breakfast, to which they all came down looking very serious, and told each other the details, and remarked to each other what an inscrutable thing it was, and yet that it was wonderful he had lasted so long. Breakfast broke in upon this universal seriousness; for when it is not any connection, as Mrs. Perronet well remarked, you cannot be expected to remain under the impression like those who are relatives; and after breakfast the Green with one consent turned from the dead to the living, and began to ask what Mrs. Damerel would do, how she would be “left,” what change it would make to her circumstances? Many shook their heads and feared that it would make
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They calculated what he had had, and what she had had, when they were married, which was an event within the recollection of many; and what the income of the rectory was, after deducting the curate’s salary and other necessary expenses; and how much Bertie cost at Eaton; and many other questions which only an intimate knowledge of their neighbors’ affairs could have warranted them in discussing. General Perronet kne
w for certain that Mr. Damerel’s life was insured in at least two offices; and though they could not, everybody agreed, have saved anything, yet there arose after a while a general hope that the family would not be so very badly off. Some of the ladies had quite decided before luncheon that the best thing Mrs. Damerel could do would be to take the White House, which happened to be empty, and which contained a number of little rooms just suitable for a large family.
To be sure, it was possible that she might prefer to go back to her own county, where her brothers still lived, one of whom was a squire of small property, and the other the parson of the hereditary parish; but the Dinglefield people scarcely thought she would take this step, considering how many friends she had on the Green, and how much better it was to stay where you are known, than to go back to a place where people have forgotten you
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