I PLAY THE PART OF CHIEF MOURNER.
Notwithstanding her limited means, my mother had always managed to
keep up a respectable appearance. Popular report had settled it that
my grandmother was a woman of property and that my father had money;
and the fact that my grandmother's long stocking had proved to be a
myth was most completely discredited. We are supposed, therefore, to
be well to do, and the scandal would have been great if my father had
not received a respectable funeral. Public opinion called for it. My
mother makes a great effort, and quite out of love, I am sure, and not
at all in deference to public opinion, buries my father in a manner so
respectable as to receive the entire approval of our neighbours.
Public opinion called for mutes, and two mutes--one with a very long
face and one with a very square face--are at our door, the objects of
deep and attentive contemplation on the part of the sundry and
several. Public opinion called for four black horses, and there they
stand, champing their bits, with their mouths well soaped. Public
opinion called for plumes, and there they wave, and bow, and bend,
proud and graceful attendants at the shrine of death. Public opinion
called for mock mourners, and they are ready to parody grief, with
very large feet, ill-fitting black gloves, and red-rimmed eyes, which
suggest the idea that their eyelids have been wept away by a long
course of salaried affliction. Never all his life had my father been
so surrounded by pomps and vanities; but public opinion has decided
that on such solemn occasions grief is not grief unless it is
lacquered, and that common decency would be outraged by following the
dead to the grave with simple humility.
The interior of our house has an appearance generally suggestive of
graves and coffins. The company is assembled in the little parlour
facing the street--my grandmother's room--and in her expiring attempt
at respectability my mother has provided sherry and biscuits. The
blinds are down although it is broad day; a parody of a sunbeam flows
through a chink, but the motes within it are anything but lively, and
float up and down the slanting pillar in a sluggish and funereal
manner, in perfect sympathy with the occasion. The cat peeps into the
room, debating whether she shall enter; after a cautious scrutiny she
decides in the negative, and retires stealthily, to muse over the
uncertainty of life in a more retired spot. The company is not
numerous. Snaggletooth is present, and the doctor, and two neighbours
who approve of the sherry. These latter invite Snaggletooth's
attention to the wine, and he pours out a glass and disposes of it
with a sadly resigned air; saying before he drinks it, with a tender
reference to my father as he holds it up to the light, Ah! If _he_
could!' Conversation is carried on in a deadly-lively style. I think
of my baby-brother, and a wild temptation urges me to fall upon my
knees and make confession of the murder; but I resist it, and am
guiltily dumb. Snaggletooth, observing signs of agitation in my face,
pats me on the shoulder, and says, 'Poor little fellow!' The two
neighbours follow suit, and poor-little-fellow me in sympathising
tones. After this, they approach the decanter of sherry with one
intention. There is but half a glass left, which the first to reach
the decanter pours out and drinks, while the second regards him
reproachfully, with a look which asks, On such an occasion should not
self be sacrificed? Before the lid of the coffin is fastened down, I
am taken into the room by Snaggletooth to look for the last time upon
my father's face. I see nothing but a figure in white which inspires
me with fear. I cling close to Snaggletooth. He is immensely affected,
and mutters, 'Good-bye, old schoolfellow! Ah, time! time!' As I look
up at him, his bald head glistens as would a ball of wax, and
something glistens in his eyes.
When the coffin is taken out of the house, there is great excitement
among the throng of persons in the street. They peep over each other's
shoulders to catch a glimpse of the coffin and of me. I cannot help
feeling that I am in an exalted position. A thrill of pride stirs my
heart. Am I not chief mourner?
I stand by the side of a narrow grave, dug in a corner of the
churchyard, and shaded from the sun's glare by a triangular wall, the
top of which is covered with pieces of broken bottles, arranged with
cruel nicety and precision, so that their sharp and jagged ends are
uppermost. Standing also within the shadow of the triangular wall are
a number of tombstones, some fair and white, others yellow and
crumbling from age, which I regard with the air of one who has
acquired a vested interest in the property. I do not understand the
words the clergyman utters, for he has an impediment in his speech.
But as the coffin is lowered, I am impelled gently towards the grave,
from which I shrink, however, apprehensive lest I shall be thrust into
it, and buried beneath the earth which is scattered on the coffin with
a leaden miserable sound. When the service is ended, I hear
Snaggletooth mutter, 'Think of him lying there, and look at me! And we
were schoolfellows, and played snowball together!' Snaggletooth shows
me my grandmother's grave, and the grave of my baby-brother. I dare
not look upon the latter, knowing what I know. Then Snaggletooth,
still with head uncovered, stands before a little gave over which is a
small marble tombstone, with the inscription, 'Here Lieth our Beloved
Daughter.' Seeing that his tears are falling on the grave, I creep
closer to him, and he presses me gently to his side. I read the
inscription slowly, spelling the words, 'Here Lieth our Beloved
Daughter,' and I look at him inquiringly.
'My daughter,' he says; 'the sweetest angel that ever breathed. She
was three years and one day old when she died, nearly five years ago.
Poor darling! Five years ago! Ah, time! time!'
As we pass out of the churchyard I notice again the broken glass on
the top of the wall, and I say,
'Isn't that cruel?'
'Why cruel?' asks Snaggletooth. 'No one can get in without hurting
himself.'
Snaggletooth regards me with an eye of curiosity.
'And who do you think wants to get into such a place, my little
fellow?'
I do not answer, and Snaggletooth adds,
'The angels, perhaps. Good--good. But they come in another way.'
'No one can get out without hurting himself,' I suggest.
'That is a better thought; but if they lived good lives----'
'Yes, sir.'
'Walls covered with broken glass won't hurt them.'
Snaggletooth looks upwards contemplatively. I look up also, and a
sudden dizziness comes upon me and overpowers me. Snaggletooth catches
me as I am falling.
'You are not well, my little fellow.'
'No, sir; I feel very weak, but the doctor says I shall get over it.'
Snaggletooth lifts me in his arms, and I fall asleep on his shoulder
as he carries me tenderly home.
Here we are, my mother and I, sitting in the little parlour. My mother
has been crying over me, and perhaps over the sad future that lies
before us. Not a sound now is to be heard. My condition is a strange
one. Everything about me is very unreal, and I wonderingly consider if
I shall ever wake up. All my young experiences come to me again.
I see my grandmother and myself sitting together. There upon the
mantelshelf is the figure of the smoke-dried monkey of a man in
stone, wagging his head at me; there is the man with the knob on the
top of his head--what is his name? Anthony--yes, Anthony
Bullpit--making a meal off his finger nails. In marches my
grandmother's long stocking, bulged out with money to the shape of a
very substantial leg, just as I had fancied it--that makes me laugh;
but my flesh creeps as I hear Jane Painter's voice in the dark,
telling of blood and murder. The last word, as she dwells upon it,
brings up my baby-brother, and I hear the Dutch clock tick: 'I know! I
know!' But it ticks all these fancies into oblivion, and ticks in the
picture of the churchyard. I see the graves and the tombstones, and I
read the inscription: 'Here Lieth our Beloved Daughter.' How it must
grieve her parents to know that their beloved daughter is lying shut
up in the cold earth! I raise a portrait of the child, with fair hair
and laughing eyes, and I wonder how she would look now if she were dug
up, and whether her parents would know her again. Night surprises me
confined within the triangular wall of the churchyard. The gates are
closed, and I cannot pass out. The moon shines down icily. The cold
air makes my fevered blood hotter. I _must_ get out! I cannot stop
confined here for ever! I dig my fingers into the wall; desperately I
cling to it, and strive to climb. Inch by inch I mount. With an
exquisite sense of relief I reach the top, but as I place my hands
upon it they are cut to the bone by the broken glass, and with a wild
shudder I sink into darkness and oblivion!