I HEAR FROM MR. JONATHAN ANDREWES--YORKSHIRE--ALATHEA _alias_
BETTY--WE BURY OUR DEAD OUT OF OUR SIGHT--VOICES OF THE NORTH
I sat up for a short time with my father on my return. When I went to
bed, to my amazement Sweep was absent, and I could not find him
anywhere. I did not like to return to the Rectory, for fear of
disturbing Mr. Andrewes' rest, so I went to bed without my dog.
I was up early next morning, for I had resolved to go to the station
to see Mr. Andrewes off, though his train was an early one, that I
might disabuse him of his superstition by our meeting once more. It
was with a secret sense of relief, for my own part, that I saw him
arranging his luggage. Sweep, by-the-by, had turned up to breakfast,
and was with me.
"I've come to see you off," I shouted, "and to break the charm of
_last times_, and Sweep has come too."
"Strange to say, Sweep came back to me last night, after you left,"
said the Rector, laughing; "and he added omen to superstition by
sitting under the window when I turned him out, and howling like a
Banshee."
Sweep himself looked rather foolish as he wagged his tail in answer
to the Rector's greeting. He had the air of saying, "We were all a
little excited last night. Let it pass."
For my own part I felt quite reassured. The Rector was in his sunniest
mood, and as he watched us from the window to the very last, his face
was so bright with smiles, that he hardly looked ill.
For some days Sweep and I were absent, fishing.
When I returned, I found on my mantelpiece a black-edged letter in an
unfamiliar hand. But for the black I should have fancied it was a
bill. The writing was what is called "commercial." I opened it and
read as follows:
"North Side Mills, Blackford,
Yorks. 4/8, 18--.
"SIR,
"I have to announce the lamented Decease of my
Brother--Reverend Reginald Andrewes, M.A.--which took place
on the 3rd inst. (3.35 A.M.), at Oak Mount, Blackford; where
a rough Hospitality will be very much at your Service,
should you purpose to attend the Funeral. Deceased expressed
a wish that you should follow the remains; and should your
respected Father think of accompanying you, the Compliment
will give much pleasure to Survivors.
"Funeral party to leave Oak Mount at 4 P.M. on Thursday next
(the 8th inst.), D.V.
"A line to say when you may be expected will enable me to
meet you, and oblige,
"Yours respectfully,
"JONATHAN ANDREWES.
"Reginald Dacre, Esq., Jun."
It is useless to dwell upon the bitterness of this blow. My father
felt it as much as I did, and neither he nor I ever found this loss
repaired. One loses some few friends in a lifetime whose places are
never filled.
We went to the funeral. Had the cause of our journey been less sad, I
should certainly have enjoyed it very much. The railway ran through
some beautiful scenery, but it was the long coach journey at the end
which won my admiration for the Rector's native county. I had never
seen anything like these noble hills, these grand slopes of moorland
stretching away on each side of us as we drove through a valley to
which the river running with us gave its name. Not a quiet, sluggish
river, keeping flat pastures green, reflecting straight lines of
pollard willows, and constantly flowing past gay villas and country
cottages, but a pretty, brawling river with a stony bed, now yellow
with iron, and now brown with peat, for long distances running its
solitary race between the hills, but made useful here and there by
ugly mills built upon the banks. Sometimes there was a hamlet as well
as a mill. Tracts of the neighbouring moorland were enclosed and
cultivated, the fields being divided by stone walls, which looked rude
and strange enough to us. The cottages were also built of stone; but
as we drove through a village I could see, through several open doors,
that the rooms were very clean and most comfortably furnished, though
without carpets, the floors, like everything else, being of stone.
It was dark before we reached Blackford. The latter part of our
journey was through a coal and iron district, and the glare of the
furnace fires among the hills was like nothing I had ever seen. At the
coach office we were met by Mr. Jonathan Andrewes. He was a tall,
well-made man, with badly-fitting clothes, rather tumbled linen,
imperfectly brushed hair and hat, and some want of that fresh
cleanliness and finish of general appearance which went to my idea of
a gentleman's outside. I found him a warm-hearted, cold-mannered man,
with a clear, strong head, and a shrewdness of observation which
recalled the Rector to my mind more than once. The tones of his voice
made me start sometimes, they were so like the voice that I could
never hear again in this life. He spoke always in the broad dialect
into which the Rector was only wont to relapse in moments of
excitement.
A carriage, better appointed than the owner, and a man-servant rather
less so, were waiting, and took us to Oak Mount. In the hall our host
apologized for the absence of Mrs. Andrewes, who was at the sea-side,
out of health.
"But Betty 'll do her best to make you comfortable, sir," he said to
my father, and turning to a middle-aged woman with a hard-featured,
sensible face, and very golden hair tightly braided to her head, who
was already busy with our luggage, he added, "You've got something for
us to eat, Betty, I suppose?"
"T' supper 'll be ready by you're ready for it," said Betty, when she
had finished her orders to the man who was taking our things upstairs.
"But when folks is come off on a journey, they'll be glad to wash
their 'ands, and I've took hot water into both their rooms."
The maid's familiarity startled me. Moreover, I fancied that for some
reason she was angry, judging by the form and manner of her reply; but
I have since learned that the ordinary answers of Scotch and Yorkshire
folk are apt to sound more like retorts than replies.
In the end I became very friendly with this good woman. Her real name,
I discovered, was not Betty. "They call me Alathea," she said, meaning
that that was her name, "but I've allus gone by the name of Betty."
From her I learnt all the particulars of my dear friend's last
illness, which I never should have got from the brother.
"He talked a deal about you," she said. "But you see, you're just
about t' age his son would have been if he'd lived."
"His son!" I cried: "was Mr. Andrewes married?"
"Ay," said she, "Master Reginald were married going i' two year. It
were his wife's death made him that queer while he couldn't abide the
business, and he'd allus been a great scholard, so he went for a
parson."
Every detail that I could get from Alathea was interesting to me.
Apart from the sadly interesting subject, she had admirable powers of
narration. Her language (when it did not become too local for my
comprehension) was forcible and racy to a degree, and she was not
checked by the reserve which clogged Mr. Jonathan's lips. The
following morning she came to the door of the drawing-room (a large
dreary room, which, like the rest of the house, was handsomely
_upholstered_ rather than furnished), and beckoned mysteriously to me
from the door. I went out to her.
"You'd like to see the body afore they fastens it up?" she said.
I bent my head and followed her.
"He makes a beautiful corpse," she whispered, as we passed into the
room. It was an incongruous remark, and stirred again an hysterical
feeling that had been driving me to laugh when I felt most sad amid
all the grotesquely dreary preparations for the "burying." But, like
some other sayings that offend ears polite, it had the merit of truth.
It was not the beauty of the Rector's face in death, however, noble as
it was, that alone drew from me a cry of admiration when I stooped
over his coffin. From the feet to the breast, utterly hiding the grave
clothes, and tastefully grouped about his last pillow, were the most
beautiful exotic flowers I ever beheld. Flowers lately introduced that
I had never seen, flowers that I knew to be rare, almost
priceless--flowers of gorgeous colours and delicate hothouse beauty,
lay there in profusion.
"Mr. Jonathan sent for 'em," Betty murmured in my ear. "There's pounds
and pounds' worth lies there. He give orders accordingly. There warn't
to be a flower 'at warn't worth its weight in gowd a'most. Mr.
Reginald were that fond of flowers."
I made no answer. Bitterly ached my heart to think of that dear and
noble face buried out of sight; the familiar countenance that should
light up no more at the sight of me and Sweep. "He looks so happy," I
muttered, almost jealously. Alathea laid her hand upon my arm.
"Them that sleeps in Jesus rests well, my dear. And, as I said to
Master Jonathan this morning, it ain't fit to overbegrudge them 'ats
gone Home."
I think it was the naming of that Name, in which alone we vanquish the
bitter victories of death, that recalled the verse which had been
floating in my head ever since that evening at the Rectory:
"Jesu, spes poenitentibus,
Quam pius es petentibus!
Quam bonus te quaerentibus!
_Sed quid invenientibus_!"
The loneliness of my childhood had given me a habit of talking to
myself. I did not know that I had quoted that verse of the old hymn
aloud, till I discovered the fact from hearing afterwards, to my no
small surprise, that Betty had reported that I "made a beautiful
prayer over the corpse."
* * * * *
The grim and hideous pomp of the funeral was most oppressive, though
in the abundance of plumes and mutes Mr. Jonathan had, as in the more
graceful tribute of the flowers, honoured his brother nobly after his
manner, which was a commercial one. It was a very expensive "burying."
Alathea did tell me what "the gin and whiskey for the mourners alone
come to," though I have forgotten. But we lost sight of the ignoble
features of the occasion when the sublime office for the Burial of the
Dead began. When it was ended I understood one of Betty's brusque
remarks, which had puzzled me when it came out at breakfast-time.
"You'll 'ave to take what ye can get for your dinners, gentlemen," she
had said; "for the singers is to meet at three, and I can't pretend to
do more nor I can."
The women mourners at the funeral (there were a few) all wore large
black silk hoods, which completely disguised them; but at the end of
the service one of them pushed hers back, and I recognized the golden
hair of Alathea, as she joined a group rather formally collected on
one side of the grave. She looked round as if to see that all were
ready, and then in such a soprano voice as one seldom hears, she
"started" the funeral hymn. It was the Old Psalm--
"O GOD, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come;
Our shelter from life's stormy blast,
And our eternal home."
I had heard very little chorus-singing of any kind; and I did not then
know that for the best I had heard--that of St. George's choir at
Windsor--voices were systematically imported from this particular
district. My experience of village singing was confined to the thin
nasal unison psalmody of our school children, and an occasional rustic
stave from a farmer at an agricultural dinner. Great, then, was my
astonishment when the little group broke into the four-part harmony of
a fine chorale. One rarely hears such voices. Betty had a grand
soprano, and on the edge of the group stood a little lad singing like
a bird, in an alto of such sweet pathos as would have made him famous
in any cathedral choir.
Mr. Jonathan's head drooped lower and lower. Affecting as the hymn was
in my ears, it had for him, no doubt, associations I could not share.
My father moved near him, with an impulse of respectful sympathy.
To me that one rich voice of harmony spoke as the voice of my old
teacher; and I longed to cry to him in return, "I have made up my
mind. It _is_ worth trying for! It is 'worth any effort, any
struggle.' Our eternal home!"