THE FUNERAL.
The next morning, at daybreak, Dr. Deane was summoned in haste to the
Barton farm-house. Miss Betsy Lavender, whose secrets, whatever they
were, had interfered with her sleep, heard Giles's first knock, and
thrust her night-cap out the window before he could repeat it. The old
man, so Giles announced, had a bad spell,--a 'plectic fit, Lawyer Stacy
called it, and they didn't know as he'd live from one hour to another.
Miss Lavender aroused the Doctor, then dressed herself in haste, and
prepared to accompany him. Martha, awakened by the noise, came into the
spinster's room in her night-dress.
“Must you go, Betsy?” she asked.
“Child, it's a matter o' life and death, more likely death; and Ann's a
dooless critter at best, hardly ever off the place, and need o' Chris'en
help, if there ever was such; so don't ask me to stay, for I won't, and
all the better for me, for I daresn't open my lips to livin' soul till
I've spoke with Mary Potter!”
Miss Lavender took the foot-path across the fields, accompanied
by Giles, who gave up his saddled horse to Dr. Deane. The dawn was
brightening in the sky as they reached the farm-house, where they found
Alfred Barton restlessly walking backwards and forwards in the
kitchen, while Ann and Mr. Stacy were endeavoring to apply such scanty
restoratives--consisting principally of lavender and hot bricks--as the
place afforded.
An examination of the eyes and the pulse, and a last abortive attempt at
phlebotomy, convinced Dr. Deane that his services were no longer needed.
Death, which so many years before had lamed half the body, now asserted
his claim to the whole. A wonderfully persistent principle of vitality
struggled against the clogged functions, for two or three hours, then
yielded, and the small fragment of soul in the old man was cast adrift,
with little chance of finding a comfortable lodging in any other world.
Ann wandered about the kitchen in a dazed state, dropping tears
everywhere, and now and then moaning,--“O Betsy, how'll I ever get up
the funeral dinner?” while Alfred, after emptying the square bottle of
brandy, threw himself upon the settle and went to sleep. Mr. Stacy and
Miss Lavender, who seemed to know each other thoroughly at the first
sight, took charge of all the necessary arrangements; and as Alfred had
said,--“_I_ can't look after anything; do as you two like, and don't
spare expense!” they ordered the coffin, dispatched messengers to the
relatives and neighbors, and soothed Ann's unquiet soul by selecting the
material for the dinner, and engaging the Unicorn's cook.
When all was done, late in the day, Miss Lavender called Giles and
said,--“Saddle me a horse, and if no side-saddle, a man's'll do, for go
I must; it's business o' my own, Mr. Stacy, and won't wait for me; not
that I want to do more this day than what I've done. Goodness knows; but
I'll have a fit, myself, if I don't!”
She reached the Potter farm-house at dark, and both mother and son were
struck with her flushed, excited, and yet weary air. Their supper was
over, but she refused to take anything more than a cup of tea; her
speech was forced, and more rambling and disconnected than ever.
When Mary Potter left the kitchen to bring some fresh cream from the
spring-house, Miss Lavender hastily approached Gilbert, laid her hand on
his shoulder, and said,--
“Lad, be good this once't, and do what I tell you. Make a reason for
goin' to bed as soon as you can; for I've been workin' in your interest
all this while, only I've got that to tell your mother, first of all,
which you mustn't hear; and you may hope as much as you please, for the
news isn't bad, as'll soon be made manifest!”
Gilbert was strangely impressed by her solemn, earnest manner, and
promised to obey. He guessed, and yet feared to believe, that the long
release of which his mother had spoken bad come at last; how else, he
asked himself, should Miss Lavender become possessed of knowledge which
seemed so important? As early as possible he went up to his bedroom,
leaving the two women alone. The sound of voices, now high and hurried,
now, apparently, low and broken, came to his ears. He resisted the
temptation to listen, smothered his head in the pillow to further muffle
the sounds, and after a long, restless struggle with his own mind, fell
asleep. Deep in the night he was awakened by the noise of a shutting
door, and then all was still.
It was very evident, in the morning, that he had not miscalculated the
importance of Miss Lavender's communication. Was this woman, whose face
shone with such a mingled light of awe and triumph, his mother? Were
these features, where the deep lines of patience were softened into
curves of rejoicing, the dark, smouldering gleam of sorrow kindled into
a flashing light of pride, those he had known from childhood? As he
looked at her, in wonder renewed with every one of her movements and
glances, she took him by the hand and said,--
“Gilbert, wait a little!”
Miss Lavender insisted on having breakfast by sunrise, and as soon as
the meal was over demanded her horse. Then first she announced the
fact of Old-man Barton's death, and that the funeral was to be on the
following day.
“Mary, you must be sure and come,” she said, as she took leave; “I know
Ann expects it of you. Ten o'clock, remember!”
Gilbert noticed that his mother laid aside her sewing, and when the
ordinary household labor had been performed, seated herself near the
window with a small old Bible, which he had never before seen in her
hands. There was a strange fixedness in her gaze, as if only her eyes,
not her thoughts, were directed upon its pages. The new expression of
her face remained; it seemed already to have acquired as permanent a
stamp as the old. Against his will he was infected by its power, and
moved about in barn and field all day with a sense of the unreality of
things, which was very painful to his strong, practical nature.
The day of the old man's funeral came. Sam led up the horses, and waited
at the gate with them to receive his master's parting instructions.
Gilbert remarked with surprise that his mother placed a folded paper
between the leaves of the Bible, tied the book carefully in a linen
handkerchief, and carried it with her. She was ready, but still
hesitated, looking around the kitchen with the manner of one who had
forgotten something. Then she returned to her own room, and after some
minutes, came forth, paler than before, but proud, composed, and firm.
“Gilbert,” she said, almost in a whisper, “I have tried you sorely,
and you have been wonderfully kind and patient. I have no right to ask
anything more; I _could_ tell you everything now, but this is not the
place nor the time I had thought of, for so many years past. Will you
let me finish the work in the way pointed out to me?”
“Mother,” he answered, “I cannot judge in this matter, knowing nothing.
I must be led by you; but, pray, do not let it be long?”
“It will not be long, my boy, or I wouldn't ask it. I have one more duty
to perform, to myself, to you, and to the Lord, and it must be done
in the sight of men. Will you stand by me, not question my words, not
interfere with my actions, however strange they may seem, but simply
believe and obey?”
“I will, mother,” he said, “because you make me feel that I must.”
They mounted, and side by side rode up the glen. Mary Potter was silent;
now and then her lips moved, not, as once, in some desperate appeal of
the heart for pity and help, but as with a thanksgiving so profound that
it must needs be constantly renewed, to be credited.
After passing Carson's, they took the shorter way across the fields, and
approached the Barton farm-house from below. A large concourse of people
was already assembled; and the rude black hearse, awaiting its burden
in the lane, spread the awe and the gloom of death over the scene. The
visitors were grouped around the doors, silent or speaking cautiously
in subdued tones; and all new-comers passed into the house to take their
last look at the face, of the dead.
The best room, in which the corpse lay, was scarcely used once in a
year, and many of the neighbors had never before had occasion to enter
it. The shabby, antiquated furniture looked cold and dreary from disuse,
and the smell of camphor in the air hardly kept down the musty, mouldy
odors which exhaled from the walls. The head and foot of the coffin
rested on two chairs placed in the centre of the room; and several
women, one of whom was Miss Betsy Lavender, conducted the visitors back
and forth, as they came. The members of the bereaved family were stiffly
ranged around the walls, the chief mourners consisting of the old man's
eldest son, Elisha, with his wife and three married sons, Alfred, and
Ann.
Mary Potter took her son's arm, and they passed through the throng at
the door, and entered the house. Gilbert silently returned the nods of
greeting; his mother neither met nor avoided the eyes of others. Her
step was firm, her head erect, her bearing full of pride and decision.
Miss Lavender, who met her with a questioning glance at the door,
walked beside her to the room of death, and then--what was remarkable in
her--became very pale.
They stood by the coffin. It was not a peaceful, solemn sight, that
yellow face, with its wrinkles and creases and dark blotches of
congealed blood, made more pronounced and ugly by the white shroud and
cravat, yet a tear rolled down Mary Potter's cheek as she gazed upon
it. Other visitors came, and Gilbert gently drew her away, to leave the
room; but with a quick pressure upon his arm, as if to remind him of his
promise, she quietly took her seat near the mourners, and by a slight
motion indicated that he should seat himself at her side.
It was an unexpected and painful position; but her face, firm and calm,
shamed his own embarrassment. He saw, nevertheless, that the grief of
the mourners was not so profound as to suppress the surprise, if
not indignation, which the act called forth. The women had their
handkerchiefs to their eyes, and were weeping in a slow, silent,
mechanical way; the men had handkerchiefs in their hands, but their
faces were hard, apathetic, and constrained.
By-and-by the visitors ceased; the attending women exchanged glances
with each other and with the mourners, and one of the former stepped up
to Mary Potter and said gently,--
“It is only the family, now.”
This was according to custom, which required that just before the coffin
was closed, the members of the family of the deceased should be left
alone with him for a few minutes, and take their farewell of his face,
undisturbed by other eyes. Gilbert would have risen, but his mother,
with her hand on his arm, quietly replied,--
“We belong to the family.”
The woman withdrew, though with apparent doubt and hesitation, and they
were left alone with the mourners.
Gilbert could scarcely trust his senses. A swift suspicion of his
mother's insanity crossed his mind; but when he looked around the room
and beheld Alfred Barton gazing upon her with a face more livid than
that of the dead man, this suspicion was followed by another, no less
overwhelming. For a few minutes everything seemed to whirl and
spin before his eyes; a light broke upon him, but so unexpected, so
incredible, that it came with the force of a blow.
The undertaker entered the room and screwed down the lid of the coffin;
the pall-bearers followed and carried it to the hearse. Then the
mourners rose and prepared to set forth, in the order of their relation
to the deceased. Elisha Barton led the way, with his wife; then Ann,
clad in her Sunday black, stepped forward to take Alfred's arm.
“Ann,” said Mary Potter, in a low voice, which yet was heard by every
person in the room, “that is my place.”
She left Gilbert and moved to Alfred Barton's side. Then, slightly
turning, she said,--“Gilbert, give your arm to your aunt.”
For a full minute no other word was said. Alfred Barton stood
motionless, with Mary Potter's hand on his arm. A fiery flush succeeded
to his pallor; his jaw fell, and his eyes were fixed upon the floor. Ann
took Gilbert's arm in a helpless, bewildered way.
“Alfred, what does all this mean?” Elisha finally asked.
He said nothing; Mary Potter answered for him,--“It is right that he
should walk with his wife rather than his sister.”
The horses and chairs were waiting in the lane, and helping neighbors
were at the door; but the solemn occasion was forgotten, in the shock
produced by this announcement. Gilbert started and almost reeled; Ann
clung to him with helpless terror; and only Elisha, whose face grew dark
and threatening, answered.
“Woman,” he said, “you are out of your senses! Leave us; you have no
business here!”
She met him with a proud, a serene and steady countenance. “Elisha,” she
answered, “we are here to bury your father and my father-in-law. Let
be until the grave has closed over him; then ask Alfred whether I could
dare to take my rightful place before to-day.”
The solemn decision of her face and voice struck him dumb. His wife
whispered a few words in his ear, and he turned away with her, to take
his place in the funeral procession.
It was Alfred Barton's duty to follow, and if it was not grief which
impelled him to bury his face in his handkerchief as they issued from
the door, it was a torture keener than was ever mingled with grief,--the
torture of a mean nature, pilloried in its meanest aspect for the
public gaze. Mary, (we must not call her Potter, and cannot yet call her
Barton,) rather led him than was led by him, and lifted her face to the
eyes of men. The shame which she might have felt, as his wife, was lost
in the one overpowering sense of the justification for which she had so
long waited and suffered.
When the pair appeared in the yard, and Gilbert followed with Miss
Ann Barton on his arm, most of the funeral guests looked on in stupid
wonder, unable to conceive the reason of the two thus appearing among
the mourners. But when they had mounted and were moving off, a rumor
of the startling truth ran from lip to lip. The proper order of the
procession was forgotten; some untied their horses in haste and pushed
forward to convince themselves of the astonishing fact; others gathered
into groups and discussed it earnestly. Some had suspected a relation of
the kind, all along, so they said; others scouted at the story, and were
ready with explanations of their own. But not a soul had another thought
to spare for Old-man Barton that day.
Dr. Deane and Martha heard what had happened as they were mounting
their horses. When they took their places in the line, the singular
companionship, behind the hearse, was plainly visible. Neither spoke
a word, but Martha felt that her heart was beating fast, and that her
thoughts were unsteady.
Presently Miss Lavender rode up and took her place at her side. Tears
were streaming from her eyes, and she was using her handkerchief freely.
It was sometime before she could command her feelings enough to say, in
a husky whisper,--
“I never thought to ha' had a hand in such wonderful doin's, and how I
held up through it, I can't tell. Glory to the Lord, the end has come;
but, no--not yet--not quite; only enough for one day, Martha; isn't it?”
“Betsy,” said Martha, “please ride a little closer, and explain to me
how it came about. Give me one or two points for my mind to rest on, for
I don't seem to believe even what I see.”
“What I see. No wonder, who could? Well, it's enough that Mary was
married to Alf. Barton a matter o' twenty-six year ago, and that he
swore her to keep it secret till th' old man died, and he's been her
husband all this while, and knowed it!”
“Father!” Martha exclaimed in a low, solemn voice, turning to Dr. Deane,
“think, now, what it was thee would have had me do!”
The Doctor was already aware of his terrible mistake. “Thee was led,
child,” he answered, “thee was led! It was a merciful Providence.”
“Then might thee not also admit that I have been led in that other
respect, which has been so great a trial to thee?”
He made no reply.
The road to Old Kennett never seemed so long; never was a corpse so
impatiently followed. A sense of decency restrained those who were not
relatives from pushing in advance of those who were; yet it was, very
tantalizing to look upon the backs of Alfred Barton and Mary, Gilbert
and Ann, when their faces must be such a sight to see!
These four, however, rode in silence. Each, it may be guessed, was
sufficiently occupied with his or her own sensations,--except, perhaps,
Ann Barton, who had been thrown so violently out of her quiet, passive
round of life by her father's death, that she was incapable of any great
surprise. Her thoughts were more occupied with the funeral-dinner, yet
to come, than with the relationship of the young man at her side.
Gilbert slowly admitted the fact into his mind, but he was so unprepared
for it by anything in his mother's life or his own intercourse with
Alfred Barton, that he was lost in a maze of baffled conjectures. While
this confusion lasted, he scarcely thought of his restoration to honor,
or the breaking down of that fatal barrier between him and Martha Deane.
His first sensation was one of humiliation and disappointment. How often
had he been disgusted with Alfred Barton's meanness and swagger!
How much superior, in many of the qualities of manhood, was even the
highwayman, whose paternity he had so feared! As he looked at the broad,
heavy form before him, in which even the lines of the back expressed
cowardice and abject shame, he almost doubted whether his former
disgrace was not preferable to his present claim to respect.
Then his eyes turned to his mother's figure, and a sweet, proud joy
swept away the previous emotion. Whatever the acknowledged relationship
might be to him, to her it was honor--yea, more than honor; for by so
much and so cruelly as she had fallen below the rights of her pure name
as a woman, the higher would she now be set, not only in respect, but
in the reverence earned by her saintly patience and self-denial. The
wonderful transformation of her face showed him what this day was to
her life, and he resolved that no disappointment of his own should come
between her and her triumph.
To Gilbert the way was not too long, nor the progress too slow. It gave
him time to grow familiar, not only with the fact, but with his duty. He
forcibly postponed his wandering conjectures, and compelled his mind to
dwell upon that which lay immediately before him.
It was nearly noon before the hearse reached Old Kennett meeting-house.
The people of the neighborhood, who had collected to await its arrival,
came forward and assisted the mourners to alight. Alfred Barton
mechanically took his place beside his wife, but again buried his face
in his handkerchief. As the wondering, impatient crowd gathered around,
Gilbert felt that all was known, and that all eyes were fixed upon
himself and his mother, and his face reflected her own firmness and
strength. From neither could the spectators guess what might be passing
in their hearts. They were both paler than usual, and their resemblance
to each other became very striking. Gilbert, in fact, seemed to have
nothing of his father except the peculiar turn of his shoulders and the
strong build of his chest.
They walked over the grassy, briery, unmarked mounds of old graves
to the spot where a pile of yellow earth denoted Old Barton's
resting-place. When the coffin had been lowered, his children, in
accordance with custom, drew near, one after the other, to bend over and
look into the narrow pit. Gilbert led up his trembling aunt, who
might have fallen in, had he not carefully supported her. As he was
withdrawing, his eyes suddenly encountered those of Martha Deane, who
was standing opposite, in the circle of hushed spectators. In spite of
himself a light color shot into his face, and his lips trembled. The
eager gossips, who had not missed even the wink of an eyelid, saw this
fleeting touch of emotion, and whence it came. Thenceforth Martha shared
their inspection; but from the sweet gravity of her face, the untroubled
calm of her eyes, they learned nothing more.
When the grave had been filled, and the yellow mound ridged and patted
with the spade, the family returned to the grassy space in front of the
meeting-house, and now their more familiar acquaintances, and many who
were not, gathered around to greet them and offer words of condolence.
An overpowering feeling of curiosity was visible upon every face; those
who did not venture to use their tongues, used their eyes the more.
Alfred Barton was forced to remove the handkerchief from his face,
and its haggard wretchedness (which no one attributed to grief for his
father's death), could no longer be hidden. He appeared to have
suddenly become an old man, with deeper wrinkles, slacker muscles, and
a helpless, tottering air of weakness. The corners of his mouth drooped,
hollowing his cheeks, and his eyes seemed unable to bear up the weight
of the lids; they darted rapidly from side to side, or sought the
ground, not daring to encounter, for more than an instant, those of
others.
There was no very delicate sense of propriety among the people, and very
soon an inquisitive old Quaker remarked,--
“Why, Mary, is this true that I hear? Are you two man and wife?”
“We are,” she said.
“Bless us! how did it happen?”
The bystanders became still as death, and all ears were stretched to
catch the answer. But she, with proud, impenetrable calmness, replied,--
“It will be made known.”
And with these words the people were forced, that day to be satisfied.