IN WHICH LOVEDAY DOES NOT ATTEND A FUNERAL
"A couple of months too soon her pains took her," said Madgy; "she has
been fretting and wisht these weeks past, with her husband always after
some young faggot up country and herself sick with envy at the girls
that could still dance with the chaps. She had no woman's heart in her,
poor soul, to carry her woman's burden. Ah! many's the strange things
in women I see at my trade," and Madgy wrung out a cloth and mumbled to
herself--her old mouth folded inwards, as though she perpetually turned
all the secrets that she knew over and over within it.
"Your mother died because she'd set her heart on death," she added, to
Loveday, "but this one died because she dedn' know how to catch hold on
life. She'd a weak hand on everything she touched, because she never
wanted nawthen enough."
"Wanting's not getting, however hard you want," said Loveday.
"Ah! isn't it? It's getting, though you may have sorrow packed along wi'
it. Out of my way, maid; I must be busy overstairs." And old Madgy went
to ply the second part of her trade, for she washed the dead as well as
the newly-born; she laid coins on the eyes of the old and flannels on
the limbs of the young with the same smile between her rheumy lids and
on her folded mouth.
Loveday stayed awhile and helped Mrs. Lear, by milking the puzzled,
lowing cows and pouring the milk into the pans, but all the time they
worked the dead girl's name was never mentioned between them. It was
as though Loveday were making amends for the ill words that had been
between them by refraining her tongue from everything but her first
few accents of pity and amaze.
That pity was shared by all the neighbourhood, gentle and simple.
Time was, just before her marriage, when Primrose was accounted a
foolish and sinful maid enough, but married she had been, and into a
highly-respected family, for the Lears' graves had lain in the next best
position to those of the gentry for many generations, and, for their
sakes more than for hers, tributes flowed in to the funeral.
This poor, pale Primrose, who had died so young, though not unmarried,
was laid to rest, with babe on arm, only a few days before the Flora
dance, and her friend Cherry, who would none the less foot it gaily on
that occasion, attended, with a length of black crape round her buxom
waist and her eyes swollen by the easy tears of an easy nature.
Loveday was not present, for, friendly as she had ever been with Mrs.
Lear, the dead girl's petulance lay between them now; memory of it
become to Loveday a pang of pity, and to Mrs. Lear a sacred duty.
Nevertheless, an odd notion, such as Loveday was apt to take, made her
feel that some tie, slight, but persistent, between Primrose and herself
drew her, at least, to give the last look possible from behind the hedge
screening the road.
There, hidden as a bird, she saw how highly the world had thought of the
girl to whom she had dared feel a flashing sense of superiority; she saw
how true respectability is to be admired. For never at any funeral, save
that of actual gentry, had there been seen so many of those elegant
floral tokens of esteem which reflect, perhaps, even more honour upon
those who bestow them than upon the dead who receive them. Primrose may
have been a poor creature enough, but the Lears had always held their
heads high among their fellows, without ever trying to push above their
station. No unseemly ambitions, no fantastic desires, had ever drawn
just censure upon Upper Farm, and wreaths and crosses decked with
tasteful streamers bore witness to this fact. There was actually an
exquisite white wreath from Miss Le Pettit of Ignores, laid proudly upon
the humbler greener offerings of farmers and fisher folk, overpowering
with its elegance even an artificial wreath under glass which came from
the Bugletown corn-chandler, who was Mr. Lear's chief customer.
Loveday, watching, knew suddenly that, when her time came, she would be
an alien in death, as she was in life; that never for her would these
costly tokens of respect be gathered. Yet, instead of this thought
humbling her, instead of it teaching her the lesson that only by
striving to do her duty in the lowly course set for her could she attain
any measure of regard, it aroused in her once more, this time with an
even fiercer intensity, her ardent desire to be as different from these
good folk as possible. Miss Le Pettit had thought her different, had
admired that difference, and to Miss Le Pettit, as supreme arbiter, her
heart turned now. There was still that doorway to her future whose latch
the fair Flora's hand could lift, and this door, ajar for her, would
open wide if she were but fitly garbed to pass across its threshold.
Watching the funeral procession, which should have suggested such far
other thoughts even to her undisciplined soul, Loveday was taken only
by an idea so rash and impious that it alarmed even herself. It was the
penalty of her dark and ardent blood that fear, like despair, added to
the force of her desires. That idea, which she should have driven from
her as a serpent, she nourished in her bosom as though it were a dove.