THE FUNERAL.
There was to be quite a display, for the ‘Squire had lived in Belvidere
for forty years. He was the wealthiest man in the place,—the one who
gave the most to every benevolent object and approved of every public
improvement. He had bought the organ and bell for the church in the
little village; he had built the parsonage at his own expense, and half
of the new town-house. He owned the large manufactory on the river, and
the shoe-shop on the hill; and the workmen, who had ever found him a
kind, considerate master, were going to follow him to the grave together
with the other citizens of the town. The weather, however, was
unpropitious, for the rain kept steadily falling, and by noon was
driving in sheets across the river and down the winding valley. Mrs.
Walter Scott’s hair, though kept in papers until the early dinner, at
which some of the village magnates were present, came out of curl, and
she was compelled to loop it back from her face, which style added to
rather than detracted from her beauty. But she did not think so, and she
was not feeling very amiable when she went down to dinner and met young
Mr. Schofield, the old lawyer’s son, who had stepped into his father’s
business and had been frequently to Millbank. Marriage was not a thing
which Mrs. Walter Scott contemplated. She liked her freedom too well,
but she always liked to make a good impression,—to look her very
best,—to be admired by gentlemen, if they were gentlemen whose
admiration was worth the having. And young Schofield was worth her while
to cultivate, and in spite of her straightened hair he thought her very
handsome, and stylish, and grand, and made himself very agreeable at the
table and in the parlor after the dinner was over. He knew more of the
Squire’s affairs than any one in Belvidere. He was at Millbank only the
day before the Squire died, and had an appointment to come again on the
very evening of his death.
“He was going to change his will; add a codicil or something,” he said,
and Mrs. Walter Scott looked up uneasily as she replied,—
“He left a will, then? Do you know anything of it?”
“No, madam. And if I did, I could not honorably reveal my knowledge,”
the lawyer answered, a little stiffly; while Mrs. Walter Scott,
indignant at herself for her want of discretion, bit her lip and tapped
her foot impatiently upon the carpet.
It was time now for the people to assemble, and as the bell, which the
squire had given to the parish, sent forth its summons, the villagers
came crowding up the avenue and soon filled the lower portion of the
house, their damp, steaming garments making Mrs. Walter Scott very
faint, and sending her often to her smelling-salts, which were her
unfailing remedy for the sickening perfumes which she fancied were found
only among the common people like those filling the rooms at
Millbank,—the “factory bugs” who smelt of wool, and the “shop hands” who
carried so strong an odor of leather wherever they went. Mrs. Walter
Scott did not like shoemakers nor factory hands, and she sat very stiff
and dignified, and looked at them contemptuously from behind her long
veil as they crowded into the hall and drawing-room, and managed, some
of them, to gain access to the kitchen where the baby was. Her story had
flown like lightning through the town, and the people had discussed it,
from Mrs. Johnson and her set down to Hester’s married niece, who kept
the little public house by the toll-gate, and who had seen the child
herself.
“It was just like Roger Irving to bring it home,” the people all agreed,
just as they agreed that it would be absurd for him to keep it.
That he would not do so they were sure, and the fear that it might be
sent away before they had a look at it brought many a woman to the
funeral that rainy, disagreeable day. Baby was Ruey’s charge for that
afternoon, and in a fresh white dress which Hester had brought from the
chest, she sat in her candle-box, surrounded by as heterogeneous a mass
of playthings as were ever conjured up to amuse a child. There was a
silver-spoon, and a tin cup, and a tea-canister, and a feather duster,
and Frank’s ball, and Roger’s tooth-brush, and some false hair which
Hester used to wear as puffs and which amused the baby more than all the
other articles combined. She seemed to have a fancy for tearing hair,
and shook and pulled the faded wig in high glee, and won many a kiss and
hug and compliment from the curious women who gathered round her.
“She was a bright, playful darling,” they said, as they left her and
went back to the parlors where the funeral services were being read over
the cold, stiff form of Millbank’s late proprietor.
Roger’s face was very pale, and his eyes were fixed upon the carpet,
where he saw continually one of two pictures—his mother standing on the
“Sea Gull’s” deck, or sitting before the fire; as Hester had said she
sat, with her eyes always upon one point, the cheerful blaze curling up
the chimney’s mouth.
“I’ll find that man sometime. I’ll make him tell why he left that doubt
to torture me,” he was thinking, just as the closing hymn was sung and
the services were ended.
Mrs. Walter Scott did not think it advisable to go to the grave, and so
Hester and Aleck went in the carriage with Roger and Frank, the only
relatives in all the long procession which wound down the avenue and
through the lower part of the town to where the tall Irving monument
showed plainly in the Belvidere cemetery. The Squire’s first wife was
there in the yard; her name was on the marble,—“Adeline, beloved wife of
William H. Irving;” and Walter Scott’s name was there, too, though he
was sleeping in Greenwood; but Jessie’s name had not been added to the
list, and Roger noticed it, and wondered he had never been struck by the
omission as he was now, and to himself he said: “I can’t bring you up
from your ocean bed, dear mother, and put you here where you belong, but
I can do you justice otherwise, and I will.”
Slowly the long procession made the circuit of the cemetery and passed
out into the street, where, with the dead behind them, the horses were
put to greater speed, and those of the late Squire Irving drew up ere
long before the door of Millbank. The rain was over and the April sun
was breaking through the clouds, while patches of clear blue sky were
spreading over the heavens. It bade fair to be a fine warm afternoon,
and the windows and doors of Millbank were open to let out the
atmosphere of death and to let in the cheerful sunshine. Friendly hands
had been busy to make the house attractive to the mourners when they
returned from the grave. There were bright flowers in the vases on the
mantel and tables, the furniture was put back in its place, the drapery
removed from the mirrors, and the wind blew softly through the lace
curtains into the handsome rooms. And Mrs. Walter Scott, wrapped in her
scarlet shawl, knew she looked a very queen as she trailed her long
skirts slowly over the carpets, and thought with a feeling of intense
satisfaction how pleasant it was at Millbank now, and how doubly
pleasant it would be later in the season when her changes and
improvements were completed. She should not fill the house with company
that summer, she thought. It would not look well so soon after the
Squire’s death, but she would have Mrs. Chesterfield there with her
sister Grace, and possibly Captain Stanhope, Grace’s betrothed. That
would make quite a gay party, and excite sufficiently the envy and
admiration of the villagers. Mrs. Walter Scott was never happy unless
she was envied or admired, and as she seemed on the high road to both
these conditions, she felt very amiable, and kind, and sweet-tempered as
she stood in the door waiting to receive Roger and Frank when they
returned from the burial.