CHAPTER XII.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE FESTIVAL.
Later in the evening, Mr. Wenck came to the house, not to talk about the event, but the funeral. In spite of the hint Loretz had dropped when talking with Leonhard, he seemed somewhat surprised when the minister proposed that the funeral should take place on the following evening. The good man made this proposal in the fewest words possible: it had evidently cost him a good deal to make it. He perhaps felt himself under constraint in the midst of this very select audience.
Loretz said, "I don't know that we can decide till Mr. Spener gets back. He went to town this afternoon."
"When will he come?" asked the minister.
"Some time to-morrow—toward night: he usually comes up at six or seven, unless he is detained."
"We might fix the funeral at six: the concert was to begin at seven. I think we may take it for granted that the hours would meet his approval. He would say, if he were here, that we had better decide on the hour ourselves."
"Yes, yes, he would say so, of course," said Loretz quickly, "and he would mean what he said, sir," he added, argumentatively. "Of course: let us then say at six o'clock the procession will move from—from the corpse-house to the church. She has been taken away just as she was in the midst of preparation for the festival; let us therefore observe it even as it would have been observed."
The voice which spoke these words was altogether under the speaker's control, but the pathos in it so moved the heart of dear little Dame Loretz that she exclaimed, "Let it be so, father: certainly, it must be. It would please Sister Benigna beyond anything to have all the little children there just as she had arranged. And who has done for the church more than she has? I am sure it is what—what everybody must see is the right thing. Mr. Wenck, I am very glad you came to talk about it: we were all beside ourselves—we didn't know what to think or what to do."
"Shall it be so, Elise?" asked Loretz, turning to his daughter quietly after his wife had concluded her animated speech.
"I know it would be what she would wish," said Elise.
"Then it shall be. I have a mind to go to town for Mr. Spener. But he will come: he is always on time. He knows when he means to be here, if we don't, and we can't change that."
So it was decided, and Mr. Wenck went away, having declined the entreaty of Mrs. Loretz to fill a seat at their supper-table.
Slowly walking back to his lonely house, which had never seemed so lonely, so desolate to him, Mr. Wenck saw little Charles Hummel, who was going in the same direction and homeward. He had been looking for Charley, for he had heard one of the children say that he was in the school-room with the teacher last, and so he took the boy's hand, and they walked along together.
"Are you all prepared with your pieces, Charley?" the minister asked.
"Oh yes, sir, but now we shall not sing them."
"And why will you not sing them, my boy?"
"Because there will not be any celebration—will there, sir?"
"Certainly: why should there not?"
"What, sir! to-morrow night, just the same?"
"Do you think that Sister Benigna would approve of our having no congregation festival?"
"Why, sir, you know—don't you know? I saw them carrying her from the school-room. She—she—"
"Yes, I know all," said the minister: "she is gone home. But then she will know about our celebration: oh yes, just the same: it must be that she will hear all the sweet voices. It seems far away to us where she is: perhaps it has seemed so, but she brings heaven nearer: it is surely but a step to the Better Land."
It had appeared almost impossible for Mr. Wenck to speak in Loretz's house, but now words came so freely to his lips that he seemed even to find comfort in speech.
The boy had now reached his father's house, and would have gone in, but the minister with gentle force retained the small hand he held, and said, "Let us walk on a little farther, Charley. How beautiful the moon is to-night! Were you in the school-room to-day, my boy?"
"I was there this afternoon, sir," said the little lad, awed by the sound of his own voice's gentleness—so gently the minister spoke he could himself speak in no other way. But he would not have liked the boys to hear him, and he looked around as if to see if any one followed, and was a little startled when he saw his shadow and the shadow of Mr. Wenck following so close.
"When I come to speak to the congregation about her I shall want to tell them all about to-day," said Mr. Wenck, "if there is anything it would be pleasant for them to know. Do you remember anything she—she said or did, Charley?"
The boy thought a moment. "It was just the same as always," said he.
"Did you practice your songs this afternoon?"
"Yes, sir, we practiced them."
"For the last time, and you did not know it!" Would that little lad remember, when he came to manhood, this hour and these words? Would he from that noonday sun receive a light that could enlighten the mystery of this pallid, shadowy hour which filled his little being with such awe?
"But she said we sang beautifully," he said, moved by the spirit of obedience to stay and answer, and not shake off the hand that held him and run home affrighted, and dream of spirits and Mr. Wenck's pale face and his strange voice.
"Oh, then you pleased her?"
"She said it was the best singing, sir, she had ever heard, and that she was glad we had worked so hard and had been so attentive and patient. That was what she said, I remember now," said the little lad with spirit: "I thought there was something I forgot. She said when we sang our part in the festival all the people would know how hard we had tried to learn."
"And when she dismissed you, was there anything more?"
"She—she kissed us: she always did," said the little fellow, bursting into sudden crying.
"Oh, Charley," said the minister—and he bent down and kissed the little boy, whose face was wet with tears—"we must not cry for her—not any of us. And God himself has wiped away her tears."
"And then when I was going out," said Charley, rallying again, "she asked me to bring her a pitcher of water from the spring before I went home. When I took it in she was reading her music, and she had some flowers in a glass. And I filled it with fresh water for her," he said proudly. And that was all he had to tell.
"You are a good boy to remember so much," said Mr. Wenck; and now he walked back with Charley to the doctor's gate, and kissing him again bade him "Good-night."
Long after every light was extinguished in Spenersberg homes, Mr. Wenck was walking up and down in front of his own house beneath the trees, pacing the grass, a noiseless sentinel. He had no duties now to perform: undisturbed his thoughts might wander whither they would. They could not wander far—too near was the magnet. The day had begun in a manner which he could not but think remarkable: the shadow of approaching calamity had disturbed him until the horror appeared. For, accustomed as he had been to teach and preach and to think of death as a friend, the conductor to a happier world, the enlightener and the life-giver, he could not regard the departure of Sister Benigna in such light. The loss to the community was almost irreparable, he began by saying to himself, but he ended by saying, "Hypocrite! do you mourn the community's loss, or your own?"
The tower-clock struck twelve as in his walk he approached the gate to his little garden: he hesitated, and then noiselessly opened it. Here were various fragrant flowers in blossom, and roses innumerable on the well-cared-for bushes, but he passed these, and gathered from the house wall a few ivy leaves, and climbing the fence in the rear of his house began to ascend the slope that led to the cemetery, that place of the people's constant resort. He did not enter it, but stood a long while on the peaceful plain, which was filled with moonlight. At last he slowly turned away and walked across the wooded knolls and fields until he came to the corpse-house, which only yesterday he had garnished with fresh boughs. He knew whither he went, and yet when he had come to the door of that resting-place the external calm disappeared—the props of consolation, the support of faith, gave way. He opened the door, entered, closed it behind him, and by the light of the lamp suspended from the whitewashed rafters saw Sister Benigna lying on the bier, dressed in white garments, with a rose in one white hand.
When he came forth again a cold fog was filling the valley, and morning approached. Who will wish to dwell even in imagination on the hours he had passed in that silent house, or care to guess the battle which perchance had been fought there, or the wild flow of tears which had for years been pent, or the groans which could not be uttered, which at last had utterance; or how at last the man died there, and the victor, as one who had been slain, came forth?