Mr. Raeburn determined that, if there had sometimes been a flaw in his
behavior towards his wife when alive, there should be no doubt about his
treatment of her in death. Her funeral should be famous for its
brass-adorned oaken coffin, splendidly new in the gigantic hearse. There
should be long-tailed sable horses with nodding plumes, and a line of
mourning coaches. Mutes should be everywhere and as many relatives as
could be routed out within the time. Black silks and satins, jet and
crape and somber stuffs should oppress the air, and Death with darkling
wings should overshadow Islington. Many mourners were gathered together
whose personalities had never played any part in Jenny's life; but
others arrived who had in the past helped her development.
Mrs. Purkiss came, escorted by Claude Purkiss representing with pale
face and yellow silky mustache the smugness of himself and Percy the
missionary. Claude's majority would occur in May, when he would be
admitted to a partnership in the business. Already a bravery of gold
paint, symbolizing his gilt-edged existence, was at work adding "And
Son" to "William Purkiss." Uncle James Threadgale made the journey from
Galton, bringing with him Mrs. Threadgale the second--a cheerful country
body who pressed an invitation upon Jenny and May to visit them. Uncle
James did not seem to have altered much, and brought up with him a roll
of fine black cloth for Jenny, but was so much upset on realizing he
had omitted May from his thoughtfulness that immediately upon his
arrival he slipped out to buy a similar roll for her. The two lodgers
were present as a mark of respect to the dead woman who had been so
admirable a landlady; and both of them, with kindly tact, announced they
were going away for a few days. Alfie, of course, was there with his
fiancee, whom Jenny somewhat grudgingly admitted to be very smart. Edie
came with the children and her husband. His arrival caused a slight
unpleasantness, because Alfie said he would rather not go at all to the
funeral than ride with Edie and Bert. But in the end a compromise was
effected by which he and his Amy occupied a coach alone. After these
mourners came a cortege of friends and cousins, all conspicuously black,
all intent to pay their homage of gloom.
Jenny, when she had made herself ready, sat on the end of the bed and
laughed.
"I can't help it, May. I know it's wicked of me. But I can't keep from
laughing, I can't really."
"Well, don't let any of them downstairs hear you," begged May, "because
_they_ wouldn't understand."
"It doesn't mean I'm not sorry about mother because I laugh. And I
believe she'd be the first to understand. Oh, May, what a tale she'd
have made of it, if she'd only been alive to see her own funeral. She'd
have kept anyone in fits of laughter for a week."
Even during the slow progress of the pomp, Jenny, in the first coach
with her father and May, was continually on the verge of laughter
because, just as by a great effort she had managed to bring her emotions
under control, Aunt Mabel had tripped over her skirt and dived head
foremost into the carriage that was to hold Claude, Uncle James and his
wife, and herself. Moreover, to make matters worse, her father's black
kid gloves kept splitting in different places until, by the time the
cemetery was reached, his hands merely looked as if they were
plentifully patched with court-plaster. It was blue and white April
weather, fit for cowslips and young lambs, when the somber people
darkened the vivid, wet grass round the grave. During the solemnity and
mournfulness of the burial service Jenny stood very rigid and pale, more
conscious of the wind sighing through the yew trees than of finality and
irremediable death. She was neither irritated nor moved by the sniffling
of those around her. The fluttering of the priest's surplice and the
tear-dabbled handkerchiefs occupied her attention less than the figure
of a widow looking with sorrowful admiration at a tombstone two hundred
yards away. She did not advance with the rest to stare uselessly down on
the lowered coffin. The last words had been said: the ceremony was done.
In the sudden silver wash of an April shower they all hurried to the
shelter of the mourning coaches. Jenny looked back once, and under the
arc of a rainbow saw men with gleaming spades: then she, too, lost in
the dust and hangings of the heavy equipage, was jogged slowly back to
Islington.
Funerals, like weddings, are commonly employed by families to weld
broken links in the chain of association with comparisons of progress
and the condolences or congratulations of a decade's chance and change.
Jenny could not bear to see these relations cawing like rooks in a
domestic parliament. She felt their presence outraged the humor of the
dead woman and pictured to herself how, if her father had died, her
mother would have sent them all flapping away. She did not want to hear
her mother extolled by unappreciative people. She loathed the sight of
her sleek cousin Claude, of Alfie glowering at Edie, of her future
sister-in-law picking pieces of white cotton off her skirt, of Edie
brushing currants from the side of Norman's mouth. Finally, when she was
compelled to listen to her father's statement of his susceptibility to
the knocks of a feather on receiving the news of his wife's death, she
could bear it no longer, but went upstairs to her bedroom, whither Aunt
Mabel presently followed in search.
"Ah, Jenny, this is a sad set out and no mistake," Mrs. Purkiss began.
Jenny did not deign to pay any attention, but looked coldly out of the
window.
"You must feel quite lost without her," continued the aunt, "though to
be sure you didn't trouble her much with your company this last year.
Poor Florrie, she used to fret about it a lot. And your father wasn't
much use--such an undependable sort of a man as he is. Let's all hope,
now he's got two motherless girls to look after, he'll be a bit more
strict."
"I wish you wouldn't keep on at me, Auntie," Jenny protested, "because I
shall be most shocking rude to you in a minute, which I shouldn't like
to be at such a time."
"Tut--tut, I wish you could control that temper of yours; but there, I
make allowances for I know you must be feeling it all very much,
especially as you must blame yourself a bit."
Jenny turned sharply round and faced her aunt.
"What for?" she demanded.
"Why, for everything. Nothing'll ever convince me it wasn't worry drove
your poor mother into the grave. Your Uncle William said the same when
he heard of it. He was _very_ disappointed to think he couldn't come to
the funeral; but, as he said, 'what with, Easter almost on us and one
thing and another, I really haven't got the time.'"
Mrs. Purkiss had seated herself in the arm-chair and was creaking away
in comfortable loquacity.
"I think it's nothing more than wicked to talk like that," Jenny
declared indignantly. "And, besides, it's silly, because the doctor said
it was an abscess, nothing else."
"Ah, well, doctors know best, I daresay; but we all have a right to our
opinions."
"And you think my leaving home for a year killed my mother?"
"I don't go so far as that. What I said was you were a worry to her. You
were a worry when you were born, for I was there. You were a worry when
you would go on the stage against whatever I said. You were a worry
when you dyed your hair and when you kept such disgraceful late hours
and when you went gallivanting about with that young fellow. However, I
don't want to be the one to rub in uncomfortable facts at such a time.
What I came up to ask was if you wouldn't like to come and stay with us
for a little while, you and May. You'll have to get an extra servant to
look after the lodgers if your father intends keeping things on as they
were, and you'll be more at home with us."
Mrs. Purkiss spoke in accents almost ghoulish, with a premonitory relish
of macabre conversations.
"Stay with you?" repeated Jenny. "Stay with _you_? What, and hear
nothing but what I ought to have done? No, thanks; May and I'll stay on
here."
"You wouldn't disturb your Uncle William," Mrs. Purkiss continued
placidly, "if that's what you're thinking of. You'd be gone to the
theater when he reads his paper of an evening."
"If I went to stay anywhere," said Jenny emphatically, "I should go and
stay with Uncle James at Galton. But I'm not, so please don't keep on,
because I don't want to talk to _any_body."
Mrs. Purkiss sighed compassionately and vowed she would forgive her
nieces under the circumstances, would even spend the evening in an
attempt to console the sad household of Hagworth Street.
"But I want to be alone, and so does May."
"Well, I always used to say you was funny girls, and this proves my
words true. Anyone would think you'd be glad to talk about your poor
mother to her only sister. But, no, girls nowadays seem to have no
civilized feelings. Slap-dashing around. In and out. Nothing but amuse
themselves, the uncultivated things, all the time. No wonder the papers
carry on about it. But I'm not going to stay where I'm not wanted and
don't need any innuendives to go."
Here Mrs. Purkiss rose from the chair and, having in a majestic sweep
of watered silk attained the door, paused to deliver one severe
speculation.
"If you treated your poor mother as you behave to your aunt, I'm not
surprised she got ill. If my Percy or my Claude behaved like you--well,
there, but they don't, thank goodness."
Jenny listened quite unmoved to the swishing descent of her aunt. She
was merely glad to think her rudeness had been effectual in driving her
away, and followed her downstairs very soon in order to guarantee her
departure.
One by one the funereal visitors went their ways. One by one they faded
into the sapphire dusk of April. Some went in sable parties like
dilatory homing cattle, browsing as they went on anecdotes of the dead.
On the tail of the last exit, their father, somewhat anxiously, as if
afraid of filial criticism, went also. He sat for a long time, as he
told them afterwards, without drinking anything, the while he stared at
his silk hat enmeshed in crape, and when he did drink he called for
stout.
The two girls stayed alone in the parlor with little heart to light the
gas, with little desire to talk over the mournful buzz which had filled
the house all day. The lodgers being gone, no responsibility of general
illumination rested with Jenny or May. Soon, however, they moved in
accord to the kitchen, where on each side of the glowing fire they
listened to the singing of a kettle and the tick of the American clock.
An insistent loneliness penetrated their souls. In that hour of sorrow
and twilight, they drew nearer to one another than ever before. Outside
a cat was wailing, and far down the road a dog, true to superstition,
howled at intervals. The kitchen was intolerably changed by Mrs.
Raeburn's absence. Jenny suddenly realized how lonely May must have been
during those weeks of illness and suspense. She herself had had the
distractions of the theater, but May must have moped away each heavy
moment.
"I wonder where Ruby is now?" said Jenny suddenly.
"Fancy! I wonder."
They sighed. The old house in Hagworth Street seemed, with the death of
its laughing mistress, to have lost its history, to have become merely
one of a dreary row.
"Oh, May, look," said Jenny. "There's her apron never even gone to the
wash."
After that the sisters wept quietly; while Venus dogged the young moon
down into the green West, and darkness shrouded the gray Islington
street.