CHAPTER XXX.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 therevolver, 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 stairswith 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-sweptstreets. Outside, the air was heavy and damp,—inside, the moral atmosphere was charged with a feeling that something was going to happen whenhecame home, and while many wished he might never come, all were on thequi vivefor 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.