Part 10 (1/2)

A little before midnight, Dupont, who had been for six hours in a lethargic sleep, stirred and woke. Madam Carroll bent over him. He knew her; he turned his head towards her and lay looking at her, his large eyes strangely solemn in their unmoving gaze. Sara came and stood on the other side of the bed, fanning him with the fan which her mother had relinquished. Thus he remained, looking at Madam Carroll, with his slow, partially comprehending stare. Then gradually the stare grew conscious and intelligent. And then it grew full of expression. It was wonderful to see the mind come back and look once more from the windows of its deserted house of clay--the last look on earth. Madam Carroll, bending towards him, returned his gaze; she had laid one hand on his forehead, the other on his breast; her fair hair touched his shoulder. She said nothing; she did not move; but all her being was concentrated in her eyes. The dying man also was silent: probably he had pa.s.sed beyond the power of speech. Thus, motionless, they continued to look at each other for a number of minutes. Then consciousness faded, the light left the windows; a few seconds more and the soul was gone. Madam Carroll, still in silence, laid her hand upon the heart and temples; all was still.

Then she gently closed the eyes.

Sara, weeping, came to her side. ”Do not, Sara; some one might come in,”

said her mother. Her hands rested on the closed lids. Then, her task done, she stood for a moment beside the couch, silently, looking at the still face on the pillow. ”You must go down and tell them,” she said, in a composed tone. ”Farmer Walley must go immediately for Sabrina Barnes and her sister. You can say that the funeral will be from this house, and that they had better ask their own minister--the one who was here this afternoon--to officiate.”

”Oh, mamma, do not try to think of everything; it is not necessary now,”

said Sara, beseechingly.

”Do as I tell you, Sara,” answered Madam Carroll. And Sara obeyed her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THE LAST LOOK ON EARTH.”]

When she returned, Madam Carroll was arranging the pillows and straightening the coa.r.s.e sheet. She had folded the musician's thin hands over his breast and smoothed his disordered hair.

”The child has been in pain all this time,” said the daughter, ”and they are frightened; Farmer Walley will go for Sabrina Barnes and for the doctor at the same time. I told Mrs. Walley that she need not come up, that we would stay. In any case she could hardly leave her baby now. But oh, mamma, do not try to do that; do not try to do anything more.”

”Yes, we will stay,” said Madam Carroll. She took a chair, placed it beside the bed, so that it faced the figure lying there, and sat down; she put her feet on a footstool and folded her hands.

”Dear mamma, do not sit there looking like that; do not try to be so quiet. No one will be here for half an hour: cry, mamma; let yourself cry. You have this little time, and--and it will be your last.”

”I will not cry,” answered Madam Carroll; ”I have not cried at all; tears I can keep back. But I should like to kiss him, Sara, if you will keep watch. He would like to have his mother kiss him once before he goes away.” And bending forward as she sat, she kissed tenderly the forehead and the closed eyes. The touch overcame her; she did not weep, but, putting her arms round him, she sat looking at him piteously. ”He was such a dear little baby!” she murmured. ”I was so proud of him! He was always so handsome and so brave--such a st.u.r.dy little fellow! When he was only six years old he said, 'I want to grow up quick and be big, so that I can take care of you, mamma.'” She stroked back his dark hair.

”You meant no harm; none of it was your fault, Julian. Do not think your mother has any blame for you, my darling boy. But _now_ you know that I have not.” She pa.s.sed her hands softly over his wasted cheeks. ”May I put him in our--in your--lot in the church-yard, Sara? It will only take a little s.p.a.ce, and the lot is so large; there isn't any other place where I should like to have him lying. People would think it was our kindness; in that way it could be done. And do not put me too far from him, when my time comes; not _too_ far. For you know he was, Sara, my dear boy, my darling first-born son.” She murmured this over and over, her arms round him. Then, ”He is not lying quite straight,” she said.

And she tried to move his head a little. But already it had the strange heaviness of death, it was like a weight of stone in her small hands. As she realized this, her face became convulsed for the first time; her whole frame was shaken by her grief.

Footsteps were now audible coming up the mountain path outside. ”Mamma, they are here,” said Sara, from her post at the window.

But Madam Carroll had already controlled herself. She rose, pressed one long, last kiss on the still face; then she went to the door and opened it. When Sabrina Barnes and her sister, the two old women who in that rural neighborhood filled the office of watching by the dead, came up the stairs, she was waiting for them. In a clear, low voice she gave them her directions: the expenses of the funeral she should herself a.s.sume. Then she pa.s.sed down the stairs with Sara on her way home, stopping to speak to the mother of the sick child in the lower room, and suggest some new remedy.

Mrs. Walley was distressed at the idea of their going home alone; but her husband had not yet returned, and the ladies did not wish to wait.

The path was safe enough; it was only the loneliness of it. But the ladies said that they did not mind the loneliness. They went down the mountain by the light of the stars, reaching the Farms a little after two o'clock. Dupont had died at midnight.

The funeral took place on Tuesday afternoon. The Baptist minister officiated, but all the congregation of St. John's were also present.

The farm-house was full, and people stood in the garden outside bare-headed and reverent. Then the little procession was formed, and went down the mountain towards St. John's, where the Carrolls, with their usual goodness, as everybody said, had given a place for the poor stranger in their own lot. The coffin was borne on men's shoulders in the old-fas.h.i.+oned way. It was covered with flowers. Every one had sent some, for they all remembered how fond he had been of their flower-gardens. They recalled his sweet voice and his songs, his merry ways with children. There was a pathos, too, in his poverty, because they had not suspected it. And so they all thought of him kindly as he was borne by on his way to his last rest.

Madam Carroll and Sara had not been at the farm-house. But they were at the grave. They were in waiting there when the procession entered the church-yard gate. They stood at the head of the coffin as it rested on the bier during the prayer. They stood there while it was lowered, and while the grave was being filled. This was the custom in Far Edgerley: everybody stayed. But when this task was completed the people dispersed; the services were considered at an end.

Flower had begun to shape the mound, and Madam Carroll still waited.

Seeing this, several persons came back, and a little group gathered.

”Ah, well, poor friendless young man, his life here is over,” said Mrs.

Greer. ”It is not quite straight, Flower; if you come here and look, you can see for yourself.”

”I suppose he was a foreigner,” said Miss Sophy; ”he looked like one.

Didn't you say that you thought he was a foreigner, Madam Carroll?”

”He came from Martinique,” answered the Major's wife; ”he had lived there, I believe, or on one of the neighboring islands, almost all his life.”

”Well, I call that foreign; I call all the West India Islands very foreign,” said Miss Sophy. ”They don't seem to me civilized. They are princ.i.p.ally inhabited by blacks.”