CHAPTER V.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 likedher 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’smarried 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 Belviderecemetery. 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 boththese 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.