Part 61 (1/2)

”It don't seem right, if he wasn't himself when he did it.”

”Lord, we're all crazy when it comes to things like that,” returned Lee. Before closing the door he flashed his black eyes and white teeth at Andrew, who felt repelled.

He sat down beside the table and leaned his head upon it. To his fancy all creation seemed to circle about that one dead man. Mr.

Lloyd had been for years the arbiter of his destiny, almost of his life. Andrew had regarded him with almost feudal loyalty and admiration, and lately with bitter revolt and hatred, and now he was dead. He felt no sorrow, but rather a terrible remorse because he felt no sorrow. All the bitter thoughts which he had ever had against Lloyd seemed to marshal themselves before him like an accusing legion of ghosts. And with it all there was a sense of desolation, as if some force which had been necessary to his full living had gone out of creation.

”It's over thirty years since I went to work under him,” Andrew thought, and he gave a dry sob. At that moment a wonderful pity and sorrow for the dead man seemed to spring up in his soul like a light. He felt as if he loved him.

Norman Lloyd's funeral was held in the First Baptist Church of Rowe.

It was crowded. Mr. Lloyd had been the most prominent manufacturer and the wealthiest man in the city. His employes filled up a great s.p.a.ce in the body of the church.

Andrew went with his mother and wife. They arrived quite early. When Andrew saw the employes of Lloyd's marching in, he drew a great sigh. He looked at the solemn black thing raised on trestles before the pulpit with an emotion which he could not himself understand.

”That man 'ain't treated me well enough for me to care anything about him,” he kept urging upon himself. ”He never paid any more attention to me than a gravel-stone under his feet; there ain't any reason why I should have cared about him, and I don't; it can't be that I do.” Yet arguing with himself in this way, he continued to eye the casket which held his dead employer with an unyielding grief.

Mrs. Zelotes sat like a black, draped statue at the head of the pew, but her eyes behind her black veil were sharply observant. She missed not one detail. She saw everything; she counted the wreaths and bouquets on the casket, and stored in her mind, as vividly as she might have done some old mourning-piece, the picture of the near relatives advancing up the aisle.

Mrs. Lloyd came leaning on her nephew's arm, and there were Cynthia Lennox and a distant cousin, an elderly widow who had been summoned to the house of death.

Ellen sat in the body of the church, with the employes of Lloyd's, between Abby Atkins and Maria. She glanced up when the little company of mourners entered, then cast her eyes down again and compressed her lips. Maria began to weep softly, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes. Ellen's mother had begged her not to sit with the employes, but with her and her father and grandmother in their own pew, but the girl had refused.

”I must sit where I belong,” said she.

”Maybe she thinks it would look as if she was putting on airs on account of--” f.a.n.n.y said to Andrew when Ellen had gone out.

”I guess she's right,” returned Andrew.

The employes had contributed money for a great floral piece composed of laurel and white roses, in the shape of a pillow. Mamie Brady, who sat behind Ellen, leaned over, and in a whisper whistled into her ear.

”Ain't it handsome?” said she. ”Can you see them flowers from the hands?”

Ellen nodded impatiently. The great green and white decoration was in plain view from her seat, and as she looked at it she wondered if it were a sarcasm or poetic truth beyond the scope of the givers, the pillow of laurel and roses, emblematic of eternal peace, presented by the hard hands of labor to dead capital.

Of course the tragic circ.u.mstances of Norman Lloyd's death increased the curiosity of the public. Gradually the church became crowded by a slow and solemn pressure. The aisles were filled. The air was heavy with the funeral flowers. The minister spoke at length, descanting upon the character of the deceased, his uprightness and strict integrity in business, avoiding pitfalls of admissions of weaknesses with the expertness of a juggler. He was always regarded as very apt at funerals, never saying too much and never too little.

The church was very still, the whole audience wrapped in a solemn hush, until the minister began to pray; then there was a general bending of heads and devout screening of faces with hands. Then all at once a sob from a woman sounded from the rear of the church. It was hysterical, and had burst from the restraint of the weeper.

People turned about furtively.

”Who was that?” whispered Mamie Brady, after a prolonged stare over her shoulders from under her red frizzle of hair. ”It ain't any of the mourners.”

Ellen shook her head.

”Do keep still, Mamie Brady,” whispered Abby Atkins.

The sob came again, and this time it was echoed from the pew where sat the members of the dead man's family. Mrs. Lloyd began weeping convulsively. Her state of mind had raised her above natural emotion, and yet her nerves weakly yielded to it when given such an impetus. She wept like a child, and now and then a low murmur of heart-broken complaint came from her lips, and was heard distinctly over the church. Other women began to weep. The minister prayed, and his words of comfort seemed like the air in a discordant medley of sorrow.

Andrew Brewster's face twitched; he held his hands clutched tightly.

f.a.n.n.y was weeping, but the old woman at the head of the pew sat immovable.

When the services were over, and the great concourse of people had pa.s.sed around the casket and viewed the face of the dead, with keen, sidewise observation of the funeral flowers, Mrs. Zelotes pressed out as fast as she was able without seeming to crowd, and caught up with Mrs. Pointdexter, who had sat in the rear of the church.