FUNERALS AND ORPHANS.
All that night I lay awake, thinking of the morrow, longing for
daylight, and so impatient of the darkness around me, that I left my bed
again and again to fling aside the curtains and search for a glow in the
east. I had told my adventure, and described the beautiful child to
Maria, my kind bonne. She heard it all with pleasant curiosity, but
strove to subdue the wild impatience with which I panted for another
interview with this heavenly creature of my own sex and age.
The next day I started for the spring, and reached it in a glow of
expectation, panting with the eager affection that burned like a fire in
my bosom. Nothing was there. The grey rock, with its trampled lichen,
the pool sleeping softly beneath it, and the sweet current rippling
through clusters of fragrant mint, alone met my ear and gaze. A few dead
blossoms lay upon the rock, tormenting me with a withered memento of the
joy I had known the day before. I sat down among these blossoms and
cried with bitter disappointment. After waiting hours in the hot sun, I
returned home weary and disheartened. Why had she broken her promise?
How could I ever trust her again if she did come to the spring? Who was
she, a real being, or a fairy, who, for one moment had taken pity on my
loneliness, to leave me more desolate than before?
My hopes of seeing her again began to falter greatly after the third
day, but still I persisted on going to the rock every morning for a
week. The dead flowers among the lichen went to my heart every time I
saw them, but I had no courage to brush them into the water; they were,
at least, a proof that I had seen her.
One morning, after brooding over my disappointment, wondering and
watching as a child, with a heart in its wish, only can wait and watch,
I shook away the tears from my eyes and sprang up, nerved with a sort of
inspiration. I would search for the child—wander right and left till she
was found. I would mourn no more, but go to work, nor yield again to
tears while an effort could be made to find her for whose presence I
pined.
I clambered up the bank, crossed into the highroad, and wandered on
toward the village that lay in lovely quietude before me, half veiled in
a silvery mist. This village was the world to me, and an eager wish to
see what it was like, mingled with a conviction that there I should find
the child.
I drew near the village, looking eagerly on each side for the object of
my wanderings. The church which, afar off, seemed in the very heart of
the place, stood some distance from the large cluster of houses, and I
reached this first. It was one of those low stone buildings so common in
England, with deep gothic windows, and a single tower draped and overrun
with ivy. Behind it was a grave-yard, crowded thick with yew and cypress
trees, under whose shadows the curious old grave-stones gleamed dimly,
as if through the mournful mistiness of a funeral veil.
Near this church, and like it, built of grey stone, to which the ivy
clung like a garment, stood a dwelling. White jessamines and creeping
roses brightened up the ivy, garlanding the very eaves with blossoms;
and a porch which was one mass of honeysuckles, was approached by a
narrow gravel path bordered with flowers, and sheltered the front door.
The contrast of life and death was strong between this dwelling and the
grave-yard. One was bright with foliage and gay with blossoms, around
which the golden bees kept up a constant hum, and birds flitted in and
out, too busy for singing, but blending their low, pleasant chirps with
the sleepy bee music. The sunshine fell softly on bee, bird, and
blossom—the dew here and there fringed the ivy leaves with diamonds, and
one high elm tree sweeping over all. Opposed to this was the grave-yard,
lying within the shadow of the church—the yews and cypress crowding
together among the graves like giant mourners at a funeral, and tall
trees looming above, laden down and black with rooks’ nests, around
which the sable birds wheeled and circled in gloomy silence, broken only
by an abrupt caw, now and then, which fell upon your ear like a cry of
pain from one of the graves. Thus it was that these two buildings, the
church and parsonage house, struck me at the time. It is strange—I have
no idea what possessed me—but I turned from the cheerful dwelling and
entered the grave-yard.
The long grass was heavy with dew, and my tiny boots were soon wet to
the ankles; but I wandered on among the ancient stones, wondering what
they were, and why the joy had all left my heart so suddenly. I bent
down and attempted to read the inscriptions on these stones; but most of
the letters were choked up with moss, and of the rest I could make
nothing. The great mystery of death had never been made known to me, and
this was the first time I had ever seen a grave.
I sat down on a horizontal stone of white marble, cut with deep, black
letters, and folding my hands on my lap, looked around saddened to the
heart, and in this new impression forgetting the child I had come forth
to seek. All at once, a strain of music swept over me from the church,
slow, sad, and with a depth of solemnity that made every string in my
heart vibrate. As if a choir of angels had summoned me, I arose and
walked slowly toward the church. The door was open, and through it swept
the music in deep, thrilling gushes, that seemed to bathe me in a solemn
torrent of sound.
In the dim light which filled the church I saw a group of persons. Some
had handkerchiefs to their eyes, and others bent forward as if in
prayer.
Directly in front of what I afterwards learned to be the altar, stood an
object that filled me with inexpressible awe. A quantity of black velvet
fell over it in deep, gloomy folds, and those nearest it wept bitterly,
and with heavy sobs that made my heart swell.
At last the music was hushed. A man stepped down from the altar in long,
sweeping robes, whose heavy blackness was relieved by a wave of white,
sweeping over one shoulder and across his bosom. Some one lifted the
mass of velvet, and I saw the flash of silver nails with the gleam of
white satin as a lid was flung back.
Then all faded from my sight. I saw nothing but a tall man, also in
robes that swept the floor, holding a child by the hand.
I uttered a low cry and moved forward. It was the child I had seen at
the spring, but oh, how changed! Her lovely face was bathed in tears;
that poor little mouth quivered with the sobs that she was striving to
keep back. One dimpled hand was pressed to her eyes and dripping with
tears—the blue ribbons, the pretty white frock, all were laid away; and,
in their place, I saw the black sleeve of her mourning dress looped from
the white shoulders with knots of crape.
I could not understand the meaning of all this, but my heart was full of
her grief. Intent on her alone, I walked up the aisle, and, flinging my
arms around her, began to weep aloud.
The child felt my embrace, gave me a wild look through her tears, and,
seeing who it was, forced away the hand her father clasped, and flung
herself upon my bosom.
I was about to speak.
“Hush, hush!” whispered the child, in a voice that reminded me of the
waters stealing through the violet hollow, it was so liquid with tears,
“see!”
Cora drew me closer to the object buried beneath those folds of velvet,
and I saw, lying upon a satin pillow fast asleep, as I thought, the
sweetest and palest face my young eyes had ever beheld. Waves of soft,
golden hair lay upon the temples, and gleamed through the cold
transparency of her cap; the waxen hands lay folded over her still
heart, pressing down a white rose into the motionless plaits of fine
linen that lay upon her bosom.
“Has she been long asleep?” I whispered.
“She is dead!” replied the child, with a fresh burst of tears.
Dead—dead! How the word fell upon my heart, uttered thus, with tears and
shuddering, its meaning visible before me in that marble stillness. My
very ignorance gave it force and poignancy. Its mysteriousness was
terrible. I had no power to question further, but clung to the child no
longer weeping, but hushed with awe.
It must have had a singular effect, my scarlet dress and rose colored
bonnet, glowing like fire among the funeral vestments around me. But no
one attempted to separate me from the child; and when the coffin was
lifted, and the music once more swelled through the sacred edifice, we
went forth clinging to each other. Though one of her hands was clasped
in that of her father, I felt quite sure he was unconscious of my
presence, for as they closed the coffin I could feel the shudder that
ran through his frame, even though I touched the child only. He walked
from the church like a blind man, capable of observing nothing but the
black cloud that passed on before, sweeping his heart away with it.
We entered the church-yard, and there, beneath one of the tall trees,
was a newly dug grave. I had seen it before, but it had no significance
then; now my heart stood still as we gathered around it.
The trembling, that had shaken the child’s frame ceased. We both stood
breathless and still as marble while the service was read; but when they
lowered the coffin into the grave, I felt the pang that shot through her
in every nerve of my own frame. She uttered no sound, but my arm was
chilled by the coldness that crept over her neck and shoulders. I do not
know how the crowd left us, but we stood alone by the grave with its
fresh disjointed sods, and the brown earth gleaming desolately through
the crevices.
All efforts at self-restraint gave way now that the widower found
himself alone, for in our grief children are looked upon like flowers.
Their sympathy is like a perfume; their innocence soothes the anguish
they witness. Their little souls are brimful of beautiful charity, and
their presence a foretaste of the heaven to which the Saviour likens
them.
He stood in his silent grief, every nerve relaxed, every breath a sigh;
his figure drooped, and the child’s hand fell loosely from his clasp. He
leaned against the tree that was to overshadow the beloved one forever,
and gazed down upon the grave as if his own soul were buried among the
sods, and he were waiting patiently for the angels to come and help him
search for it.
I felt that Cora was growing colder and colder. Her face was white as
newly fallen snow. She ceased to weep, and allowed me to lead her away
to the marble slab I had occupied when the funereal music led me to her.
We sat down together, and she leaned against my shoulder in profound
silence. Her eyelids closed languidly, and the violet of her eyes tinged
their whiteness like a shadow. For some minutes we sat thus, when a
hoarse caw from the rooks circling above the tree, at whose foot lay the
grave, made her start. She gave a single glance toward the tree, saw her
father and the green sods, and, bursting into a fresh agony of tears,
cried out,
“She is there—she is there—mother, mother—I have no mother!”
This cry awoke a strange pang in my bosom. For the first time there was
entire sisterhood in our grief. Mother, mother, that was the thing for
which I had pined, that was my own great want—I had felt it in the
meadow when the lark fed its young—I had felt it in my convalescence—in
the picture gallery—everywhere, and now this harassing want was hers
also. As she cried aloud for her mother, so did my soul echo it; and, as
if her own lips had uttered the sound, I wailed forth,
“Mother, mother—_I_ have no mother!”
With that we flung our arms around each other, as flowers sometimes
twine their stems in the dark, and were silent again.
But this intense excitement could not last with children so impulsive
and so ardent. After a while Cora began to be impatient of her father’s
immovability; it frightened her.
“Let us go to him,” she whispered; “he seems dropping to sleep as she
did. How white and still his hands look, falling so loosely against the
black robe.”
We crept toward the stricken man, and stood beside him in breathless
awe. He did not observe us; his eyes riveted themselves upon the sods;
the drooping of his limbs increased. He seemed about to seat himself on
the earth.
Cora took his nerveless hand between hers, and raised her great blue
eyes, now full of a light more touching than tears, to his face.
“Papa, papa, come home; you told me that she would never wake up again.”
He turned his heavy eyes upon the child with a look of questioning
weariness, as if he had not comprehended her, and remained gazing in her
face, with a mournful smile parting his lips.
“Come!” said the child, pulling gently at his hand—“come!”
He yielded to her infant force as if he were himself a child to be thus
guided, and walked with a feeble step toward the house. But its
cheerfulness mocked him. Bees that had been gathering stores from the
honeysuckle porch—birds lodged in the great elm, and a thousand summer
insects that love the sunshine, all set up a clamor of melody that made
him shrink as if some violence had been offered. He said nothing, but I
could see the color fade like mist from his lips. We had brought him too
suddenly from the shadows of the grave; the soul requires time before it
can leave the vale of tears to stand uncovered in the sunshine. We
entered a little parlor, very simple in its adornments, but neat and
cheerful as a room could be. The casements were draped with foliage, and
this gave a soft twilight to the apartment, that soothed us all.
He sat down in a large, easy-chair, draped with white dimity, that gave
a strong contrast to his black robe. Cora climbed to his knee, and put
up her quivering lips for a kiss; but he did not heed the action, and I
saw her pretty eyes fill with tears—she, poor thing, who had shed so
many that day.
I could not bear that look of sorrow, and pressed close up to his other
knee.
“Sir, papa,” for she had called him this; and why should not any other
child? “Papa, Cora wants to kiss you; she has been trying and trying,
but you don’t mind in the least.”
He looked at me with a bewildered stare, glancing down from my face to
the brilliant garments that contrasted like flame against his black
robe.
“It is Cora, poor little Cora, you should speak to—not me,” I said.
“Look, her eyes are full again, and she has cried herself almost to
death before.”
He looked at the child. The hard gloom melted from his eyes, and drawing
her to his bosom he dissolved into tears.
I took his hand and kissed it. I pressed my lips down on the child’s
feet, and smoothed her mourning frock with my hands. Tears were flashing
like hail-stones down my own cheeks, and yet there was joy in my heart.
Though a child, I knew that the worst part of his grief had passed away.
Poor little Cora, how she clung and wept, and nestled in his bosom! His
strange coldness had seemed like a second death to the child. I felt
that both were happier, and looked on with a glow of the heart.
“My child—my poor, poor orphan,” he murmured, kissing her forehead,
while one little pale cheek was pressed to his bosom—“my orphan, my
orphan”——
“What is an orphan, papa?” questioned the child, lifting up her face,
and gazing at him through her tears. “What is an orphan?”
“It is a child who has no mother, Cora,” was the low and mournful reply.
My heart listened, and I felt to its innermost fold that there was a
mysterious sisterhood between the child and myself.
Cora had withdrawn from her father’s bosom, and sat upright on his knee
listening to him. There was a moment’s silence, and then, for the first
time, he seemed perfectly conscious of my presence.
“And who is this?” he inquired, laying his hand on my head with mournful
kindness.
“I am an orphan like her,” was my answer.
“Poor child!” he murmured, gently smoothing my hair again. “But how came
you here? You have been crying too—what has grieved you?”
“They were crying, all except you,” I answered. “I was looking for her,
down at the brook spring; something told me to walk on—on—on till I came
here. I saw Cora and that beautiful lady on the satin pillow, with all
the black velvet lying so heavily over her. Cora was very unhappy; so
was I; that is all.”
“But who are you? What is your name?” he asked, looking tenderly in my
face.
“Zana is my name?”
“Zana, what more? You have another name!”
“No—Zana, that is all.”
“But who is your father?”
The question puzzled me; I did not know its meaning; no one had ever
asked after my father before.
“My father!” I said, doubtfully.
“Yes, your father; is he living?”
“I don’t know!”
“But his name, what was that?”
“I don’t know!”
“Then you are indeed an orphan, poor thing.”
“I have no mother; isn’t that an orphan?”
“Truly it is, poor infant—but where do you live?”
“On the Rock, by the little spring pond; don’t you remember, papa?” said
Cora, beginning to brighten up.
“Yes, I remember,” he replied, sinking back into the sorrowful gloom,
from which my strange appearance had aroused him; “and this was the
child then who made your pretty violet wreath?”
“Mamma smiled, don’t you remember, when she saw me with it on, and said
it was so lovely!” answered the child, with animation.
“She never looked on you, my poor darling, without a smile,” answered
the father, so sadly that my heart swelled once more.
He seemed to forget me again, and sat gazing wistfully on the floor.
Cora, too, was exhausted by excess of weeping, and I saw that her
beautiful eyelids were drooping like the overripe leaves of a white
rose. With a feeling that it was kind and right, I stole from the room
and made my way home. It was a long walk, and I reached the cottage in a
terrible state of exhaustion. My kind-hearted bonne took me in her arms
without annoying questions, and I sighed myself to sleep on her bosom.