Part 25 (2/2)
”My dear Winston, you must recollect what an insufferable headache I had that day.”
”Don't have one to-day,” ordered her husband laconically. ”Mabel, do you care to go?”
”By all means. I would not fail, even in seeming, in rendering respect to one I used to like so much, and whose kindness to me was unvarying.
You have no objection, Herbert?”
”None. I may accompany you--the day being fine, and the roads in tolerable order.”
The funeral was conducted with the disregard of what are, in other regions, established customs that distinguish such occasions in the rural districts of Virginia.
Written notices had been sent out, far and near, the day before, announcing that the services would begin at two o'clock, but when the Aylett party arrived at a quarter of an hour before the time specified, there was no appearance of regular exercises of any kind. A dozen carriages besides theirs were cl.u.s.tered about the front gate, and a long line of saddle-horses tethered to the fence. Knots of gentlemen in riding costume dotted the lawn and porches, and within-doors ladies sat, or walked at their ease in the parlor and dining room, or gathered in silent tearfulness around the open coffin in the wide central hall.
The bed-room of the deceased was a roomy apartment in a wing of the building, and to this Mabel was summoned before she could seat herself elsewhere.
”Miss Mary's compliments and love, ma'am; and she says won't you please step in thar, and set with Mistis' friends and relations?” was the audible message delivered to her by Mrs. Trent's spry waiting-maid.
Herbert looked dubious, and Mrs. Aylett enlarged her fine eyes in a manner that might mean either superciliousness or well-bred amazement.
But Mabel was neither surprised nor doubtful as to the proper course for her to pursue. Time was when she was as much at home here as Rosa herself, and Mrs. Tazewell's partiality for her was shared by others of the family. That she had met none of them in ten or twelve years, did not at a season like the present dampen their affection. They would rather on this account seize upon the opportunity of honoring publicly their mother's old favorite.
The chamber was less light than the hall she traversed to reach it.
She recognized Mary Trent, the daughter next in age to Rosa, who fell upon her neck in a sobbing embrace, then the other sisters and their brother, Morton Tazewell, with his wife, and was formally presented to their children.
Finally she turned inquiringly toward a gentleman who stood against the window opposite the door, with a little girl beside him.
Confused beyond measure, as the hitherto unthought-of consequences of her impulsive action in sending for her friend rushed upon her mind, Mrs. Trent faltered out:
”I forgot! You must excuse me, but I was so anxious to see you. My brother-in-law, Mr. Chilton. He arrived yesterday--not having heard of mother's death.”
And for the first time since they looked their pa.s.sionate farewell into each other's eyes under the rose-arch of the portico at Ridgeley, on that rainy summer morning, the two who had been lovers again touched hands.
”I hope you are quite well, Mr. Chilton,” said Mabel's firm, gentle voice. ”Is this your daughter?” kissing the serious-faced child on the forehead, and looking intently into her eyes in the hope of discovering a resemblance to her mother.
Then she went back to a chair next to Mrs. Trent's, and began to talk softly of the event that had called them together, not glancing again at the window until the outer hall was stilled, that the clergyman might begin the funeral prayer.
”The services will be concluded at the grave,” was the announcement that succeeded the sermon; and there followed the shuffling of the bearers'
feet, and their measured tramp across the floors and down the steps of the back porch.
The daughters and daughter-in-law let fall their veils and pulled on their gloves, and Herbert Dorrance beckoned somewhat impatiently to his wife from the parlor door. While she was on her way to join him, she saw his complexion vary to a greenish sallow, his mouth work spasmodically, and his eyes sink in anger or dismay.
Winston Aylett likewise noted and knew it, for the same look of abject terror he had observed upon the hard Scotch face when Mabel enumerated upon her fingers those she accused of having robbed her of her babe.
The wife attributed it to displeasure at seeing Frederic Chilton among the mourners. Her whilom guardian, never charitable overmuch, inclined the more to the belief begotten within him by other incidents, to wit: that his brother-in-law's talk was more doughty than his deeds, and his real sentiment upon beholding the man he boasted of having flogged as a libertine and coward, was physical dread for his own safety. Watchful alike of the other party to the ancient quarrel, he was rewarded by the sight of Chilton's irrepressible start and frown, when Mabel put her hand within her husband's arm, and stood awaiting the formation of the procession. The discarded lover gazed steadfastly into Dorrance's countenance in pa.s.sing to his place, in recognition that scouted a.s.similarity with salutation, but his eye did not waver or his color fade.
”I would not be afraid to wager that this is but another version of the fable of the statue of the man rampant and the lion couchant,” thought Mr. Aylett, following with his wife in the funeral train down the gra.s.s-grown alley leading through the garden to the family burying-ground. ”It would be an entertaining study of human veracity if I could hear Chilton's story, and compare the two. He is either an audacious rascal, or there is something back of all that I have heard which will not bear the light.”
It was not remorse at the thought of the total alteration in his sister's life and feelings that had grown out of this imperfect or false evidence, but simple curiosity to inspect the lineaments and note the actions of the cool rascal whose audacity commanded his admiration, and note his bearing in the event of his coming into closer contact with his former foe, that prompted him to single him out for scrutiny among those whose relations.h.i.+p to the deceased secured them places nearest the grave.
For a time the widower was gravely quiet, holding his child's hand and looking down steadfastly into the pit at his feet, perhaps remembering more vividly than anything else a certain sunny day in March, many years back, when another fissure yawned close by, where now a green mound--the ridged scar with which the earth had closed the wound in her breast--and a stately shaft of white marble were all that remained to the world of ”Rosa, wife of Frederic Chilton.” But, while the mould was being heaped upon the coffin, he raised his eyes, and let them rove aimlessly over the crowd, neither avoiding nor courting observation--the cursory regard of a man who had no strong interest in any person or group there. They changed singularly in resting upon the family from Ridgeley. A stare of stupefaction gave place to living fires of angry suspicion and amazement--lurid flame that testified its violence in the reddening of cheeks and brow, in the dilating nostril and quivering lips. Then he pa.s.sed his hand downward over his features, evidently conscious of their distortion, and striving after a semblance of equanimity, and looked again in stern fixity, not at her from whom he had been parted in the early summer of his manhood, nor at his successful rival, nor yet at the guardian who had offered him gratuitous insult in addition to the injury of refusing to permit his ward's marriage with a disgraced adventurer--but at Mrs. Aylett, the chatelaine of Ridgeley, the wife whose serene purity had never been blemished by a doubting breath; chaste and polished matron; the admired copy for younger and less discreet, but not more beautiful women. He surveyed her boldly--if the imagination had not seemed preposterous--Mr. Aylett would have said scornfully, as he might study the face and figure of some abandoned wretch who had accosted him in the public thoroughfare as an acquaintance.
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