When Last I Died

"The mistress loved this room," said Eliza, looking round it with affectionate pride. "It was here that she died, madam. Had her bed brought down here and the dining-table and chairs moved out to get it in. What a job it was to get her downstairs and into it, too. She was a big, heavy woman, you know, madam, and had had her hair dyed dark red, which nobody really cared for, not even herself when it was done. 'I've made a fool of myself, Eliza,' she said to me when she came home— went up to London, she did, to have it tinted—'and I wish now I'd never had it done. But you can take it that nobody but myself is ever going to know that. I shall keep it touched up now I've taken the plunge.' And so she did, to the last. Ah, she was a wonderful old lady; eighty-one when she died, and all her faculties, as you might say. Nobody thought of her going like that at the end. It was on the Wednesday that she tumbled over. She wouldn't have me help her dress, and so, of course, it happened! The very first time I hadn't tied her strings for her—for she wore the old-fashioned petticoats to the end, two flannel ones and one white one in winter, and just the two white ones in summer—and down she went. I'd helped her ever since her rheumatism began to make her what she called fumble-fisted.

"I was down in the kitchen when she fell, but of course, I heard the crash, and her calling out as she tumbled.

"Doctor was very grave at first; a young doctor he was then, although we've got quite used to him in these parts by now. He said she'd never work off the effects like younger people can, so, when he put it like that, I said, 'Oh, doctor, you don't mean she won't get over it! Because if you mean that,' I said, 'I really ought to send for her relations.'

"He looked at me very sober at that, and said, 'You'd better send for them, then.' That was on the following Saturday morning.

"With that, he went, and I went straight to the bureau for the address of the Institution where Miss Bella was gone to be housekeeper. The mistress saw me, of course, and she called out from the bed, 'Don't you go writing to that addle-headed niece Tessa of mine! I'm not that far gone, Eliza, that I don't know how you favour her above Bella.'

"'I thought you'd like Miss Bella to know you weren't quite yourself, mum,' I said; and at that she tried to raise herself a bit on the pillow and said, speaking sharp-like, as she always did when she wanted a bit of an argument,

"'What do you mean—quite myself? I'm not in my dotage yet, thank goodness! Don't be a fool, Eliza!'

"'No, mum,' I said, quite meek, for I'd found Miss Bella's address by that time, so I wanted to humour her a bit. But she saw I'd got it. Her eyes were very quick. Still, she said no more, except to tell me to put Care of the Warden on the envelope. It was that, I think, her wanting Miss Bella to come, that made me sure how very bad she was, and made me turn the letter into a telegram, to fetch her as soon as might be."

"And I suppose you sent, also, to the other relatives who came?" said Mrs. Bradley.

"No, that I didn't, madam. I wouldn't have taken the liberty. Not that Mr. Tom wasn't very fond of the mistress, although he wouldn't go in and see her, and as for his wife, well, she was more like an angel of mercy, because she hardly knew the mistress at all, and yet, when it came to the come to, she was far more help in the sickroom than ever poor Miss Bella was. But there! The married women are the handiest (although I'm not married myself), when it comes to looking after things in the house."

"I don't quite understand, then," said Mrs. Bradley, "how Cousin Tom and his wife Muriel happened to be there at that very crucial time."

"You may call it that," said Eliza. "The mistress rallied nicely, and the doctor, you could tell (although, of course, he wouldn't say so, taking to himself all the credit, as young men do), was wonderfully surprised at how she was getting over it. He said she must have had, for her age, a fine constitution, but, myself, I call it more the will-power. She could be very determined, the mistress, when she liked. I say it was her will-power pulled her round. But as for Mr. Tom knowing he ought to be present if it meant the poor mistrees's deathbed, I said to Miss Bella to send a telegram if she thought he ought to be present, and so I suppose she sent it, which I wouldn't venture to do."

"Where exactly in the house did your mistress have her fall?" Mrs. Bradley enquired.

"Why, in the bathroom passage, to be sure."

"Ah, yes, of course. Now what was that about the tin of lobster which Miss Bella brought back with her after she had been out for the afternoon?"