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Updated: May 5, 2025
The next thing I would see was a small tent-bed, with the whitest of curtains, and enchanting fringes of white ball-tassels. The bed was covered with an equally charming counterpane of silk patchwork.
A strip of thick canvas was stretched across the cell and fastened at each end by leather straps running through those mysterious rings. A coarse sheet was spread on this, then a rough blanket, and finally a sieve-like counterpane; the whole forming a very fair imitation of a ship's hammock.
The disorder happened to be a little worse than usual. A wet umbrella leaned against her bed, and Ethelinda's damp coat lay across the white counterpane, for she had been walking in the rain, and had thrown them down in the most convenient spot on entering. Other articles were scattered about promiscuously, but Mary made no attempt as usual to put them in place.
Panpan himself lay with rigid features, and his wiry hands spread out upon the counterpane. Madame was at first inconsolable and inexplicable, but at length, amid sobs, half suppressed, related the nature of their new misfortune. Ces miserables! Here poor Madame Panpan could not contain herself, but gave way to her affliction in a violent outburst of tears.
So he pulled off the counterpane, opened the bed, undressed in a pretty dressing-room, and lay down to meditate on destiny. "I forgot poor Carmagnola," said he; "but my cook and butler will have provided for him." At this juncture, a waiting-woman came in, lightly humming an air from the Barbiere.
There was a faint tinge of color in his face; there was moisture on his forehead; his hands lay as still on the counterpane, in the blessed repose that possessed him, as the hands of a sleeping child. I looked round at Madame Fontaine. She smiled again; my utter bewilderment seemed to amuse her. "He is left entirely to me, David," she said, looking tenderly at her patient.
As he lay back on the pillow, however, holding up the bust and turning it sideways to read the indications, he became aware of a black dribble rapidly staining the sheets and counterpane. Horrified at such a sight, he sprang out of bed, and discovered too late that he had totally emptied the inkstand.
An hour before he had waked, and, lying quietly by her, thinking no doubt of the woman for whom he was going to desert her, he had by chance touched her hand as it lay on the counterpane, with the shabby black rosary in it, and the hand was cold. They had not called a doctor, for there was no doubt that she was dead, and she had hated doctors.
Plumfield stepped forward to ask after the old lady's health; and while she talked and listened Fleda's eyes noted the spotless condition of the room the white table, the nice rag-carpet, the bright many-coloured patch-work counterpane on the bed, the brilliant cleanliness of the floor where the small carpet left the boards bare, the tidy look of the two women; and she made up her mind that she could get along with Miss Barbara very well.
"What is the matter my little one?" said his wife, lifting her nose above the counterpane. "I heard a scratching," said the good man. "We shall have rain to-morrow; it's the cat," replied his wife. The good husband put his head back upon the pillow after having been gently embraced by his spouse. "There, my dear, you are a light sleeper. It's no good trying to make a proper husband of you.
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