THE FUNERAL.
Very early the next morning crowds of people were making their way to
the Percy Cottage, which was soon filled to its utmost capacity. The
yard, also, was full, and the sidewalk; those on the outer edge speaking
together in low tones, as if saying what they ought not to say and
afraid of being heard. Somebody had talked, and there were strange
rumors afloat. A few whispered them to each other under ban of secrecy,
while others discussed them more openly and stamped them a lie, or, at
least, something which would be explained when Jack was buried. Miss
Hansford was late at the funeral and held her head high in the air as
she made her way through the crowd, which fell apart to let her pass and
stared at her as if she were a stranger. Her name was mixed with the
rumors and the revolver, which, it was said, she had found and secreted
and those in the secret would not have been surprised to have seen Max
Allen, the constable, who was present, place his hand on her shoulder as
she pushed past him into the house.
Paul was one of the chief mourners, sitting with Mrs. Percy and Clarice,
his face pale and tired, but wearing no look of guilt and meeting the
curious eyes around him fearlessly. All his thoughts were centered on
Clarice and the dead man lying in his coffin, with so many flowers
heaped around him that they seemed a mockery to those who believed he
had taken his own life. Mrs. Percy and Clarice were draped in crape, and
the grief of the latter was not feigned as she looked her last upon the
brother to whom she had never been very kind. Paul walked between the
two to the carriage when the services were over and followed them into
it unmolested. Had he been stopped there were those present ready to do
battle for him and rescue him, for, as yet, the rumors were only rumors,
which needed verifying. Judge Ralston and his wife were to accompany
Mrs. Percy and Clarice to Washington. They had heard nothing. No one in
the household had heard anything, except Tom Drake, who was in a white
heat of anger as he drove behind the hearse and then acted as body guard
to the mourners, seeing them on to the boat and keeping close to Paul
until the last possible moment, as if fearing harm might come to him.
Elithe did not attend the funeral. She had scarcely been more tired when
she reached the end of her journey from the Rockies than she was that
morning, and, had she wished to go, her aunt would not have allowed it.
“Lock the doors and don’t let anybody in,” Miss Hansford said to her,
and Elithe obeyed.
Then going to an upper window, which commanded a view of Oceanside, she
saw the hearse and the carriages and a multitude of people following
them to the wharf. She heard the last warning bell and watched the boat
until it disappeared from view, sending after it a tearful good-bye to
the dead man who had loved her, and a prayer for the living man who was
more to her than Jack Percy had ever been. Miss Hansford went to the
boat with the crowd, impelled by a force she could not resist. Her bones
told her she must see and hear all she could, if there was anything to
be heard or seen. She did see people whispering to each other and
directing glances towards Paul, and while struggling with the crowd she
heard the missing revolver mentioned as something which would “prove or
disprove,” the man said who was talking of it. With a sinking heart she
hurried home to see if it were safe at the bottom of her chest. It was
there, and she took it out and looked at it in a kind of terror, as if
it were Jack himself, reproving her that all her thought was for Paul
and none for him, cut off in his young manhood just as he was trying to
reform.
“He didn’t mean to do it. He didn’t know you were there. He will explain
it when he comes back. He had to go to your funeral first with Clarice,”
she said, apostrophizing the pistol as if it were really Jack, and not
at first hearing the voice calling to her from below.
“Miss Hansford, Miss Hansford, we want to see you.”
It was the man who had picked up the revolver, and Miss Hansford’s teeth
chattered as she dropped it into the chest, heaped the clothes over it,
closed the lid and sat down upon it with a determination that nothing
should make her give it up.
“Well, what do you want? I’m busy,” she called back.
“Want to see you,” and Seth Walker came up the stairs with the bold
familiarity of the people of his class. “They’ve got to have that
revolver,” he said in a whisper. “Somebody seen me pick it up and give
it to you. I never told nobody but my wife, and she told nobody but her
mother and sister. It couldn’t of got out that way. They will have the
pistol, they say, if they send a constable for it. Better give it up
peaceable.”
The word constable had a bad sound to Miss Hansford. For one to cross
her threshold would be a disgrace, no matter what his errand might be.
Her resolve to fight over the murderous weapon began to give way before
the dreaded law. She must give it up, and very slowly she opened the
chest, lifted the articles in it one by one, took up the revolver,
examined it carefully, and poor, half-crazed woman that she was, tried
to rub off the “P. R.” with her apron.
“They won’t come off,” Seth said, understanding her meaning, “and they
are kind-er damagin’, with the other stuff that’s told; but he ain’t
guilty. None of us will ever think so. It was a mistake,—manslaughter is
the wust they can make of it, if they do anything.”
He took the revolver and went down the stairs, while Miss Hansford, not
knowing what she was doing, sat down in the middle of the deep chest,
with the lid still open and the linen sinking under her weight, until
her feet scarcely touched the floor. It was not a very comfortable
position, but she did not mind it, and as she could not well rock back
and forth, she rocked from side to side, repeating to herself, “At the
most, manslaughter!” That meant imprisonment for Paul for a longer or
shorter period. Her boy,—her Paul,—whom, until she knew Elithe, she
loved better than any one in the world. She couldn’t bear it. God
wouldn’t allow it; if he did, she’d——
Here she stopped, appalled at her defiance of her Maker. “Forgive me; I
don’t know what I’m saying, nor how I’m to get out of this pesky place,”
she moaned, as she sank deeper into the chest. Elithe solved the last
difficulty by coming to the rescue and laughing in spite of herself as
she saw her aunt’s doubled-up position.
“I don’t see how you can laugh,” she said, as she got upon her feet. “I
don’t feel as if I should ever laugh again. Somebody has blabbed.
They’ve got the pistol, with his name on it. Nothing will save him now.
It’ll be manslaughter, at least, and that means hair shaved off and
striped clothes and prison fare for I don’t know how long.”
Elithe made no reply, nor was she surprised, for how could a dozen
people be expected to keep silent? Going to her room, she sat down to
think. If anything were done to Paul, she would be subpoenaed as chief
witness, and she felt she would rather die than appear against him.
“What could I say except that I saw him, for I did. God help me!” she
cried, in a paroxysm of pain more acute than that of her aunt, because
on her the heavier burden would fall if Paul Ralston were arrested.
Many people came to the cottage that day, asking questions concerning
the events of Sunday night, but receiving no satisfaction.
“I know next to nothing, and, if I did, I should keep it to myself,”
were Miss Hansford’s evasive replies.
The next day fewer people came, and those who did neither asked
questions nor gave information. Something in Miss Hansford’s attitude
precluded both. On Thursday no one came. This was to have been the
wedding day, and, as if sorrowing for the life ended so tragically and
the wrecked happiness of Paul and Clarice, the skies shed showers of
tears, which kept every one indoors, with a feeling as if a great
funeral were passing through the rain-swept streets. Outside, the air
was heavy and damp,—inside, the moral atmosphere was charged with a
feeling that something was going to happen when _he_ came home, and
while many wished he might never come, all were on the _qui vive_ for
his coming. On Sunday those who were at church told everybody they met
who did not already know it that Judge Ralston and wife were in Boston
and would be home on Monday and that Paul and the Percys were coming on
Wednesday.