Evered

by Ben Ames Williams

VIII

THE day of Mary Evered’s burial was such a day as comes most often immediately after a storm, when the green of the trees is washed to such a tropical brightness that the very leaves radiate color and the air is filled with glancing rays of light. There were white clouds in the blue sky; clouds not dense and thick, but lightly frayed and torn by the winds of the upper reaches, and scudding this way and that according to the current which had grip of them. Now and then these gliding clouds obscured the sun; and the sudden gloom made men look skyward, half expecting a burst of rain. But for the most part the sun shone steadily enough; and there was an indescribable brilliance in the light with which it bathed the earth. Along the borders of the trees, round the gray hulks of the bowlders, and fringing the white blurs of the houses there seemed to shimmer a halo of colors so faint and fine they could be sensed but not seen by the eye. The trees and the fields were an unearthly gaudy green; the shadows deep amid the branches were trembling, changing pools of color. A day fit to bewitch the eye, with a soft cool wind stirring everywhere.

Evered himself was early about, attending to the morning chores. Ruth MacLure had fallen asleep toward morning, and the woman with her let the girl rest. John woke when he heard his father stirring; and it was he who made breakfast ready, when he had done his work about the barn. He and his father ate together, and Ruth did not join them.

Evered, John saw, was more silent than his usual silent custom; and the young man was not surprised, expecting this. John himself, concerned for Ruth, and wishing he might ease the agony of her grief, had few words to say. When they were done eating he cleared away the dishes and washed them and put them away; and then he swept the floor, not because it needed sweeping, but because he could not bear to sit idle, doing nothing at all. He could hear the women stirring in the other room; and once he heard Ruth’s voice.

John’s grief was more for the living than for the dead; he had loved Mary Evered truly enough, but there was a full measure of philosophy in the young man. She was dead; and according to the simple trust which was a part of him she was happy. But Ruth was unhappy, and his father was unhappy. He wished he might comfort them.

Evered at this time was soberly miserable; his mind was still numb, his emotions were just beginning to assert themselves. He could not think clearly, could scarce think at all. What passed for thought with him was merely a jumble of exclamations, passionate outcries, curses and laments. Mary was dead; and he knew that dimly, without full comprehension of the knowledge. More clearly he remembered Mary and Dane Semler, sitting so intimately side by side; and the memory was compounded of anguish and of satisfaction—anguish because she was false, satisfaction because her frailty in some small measure justified the monstrous thing he had permitted, and in permitting had done. Evered did not seek to deceive himself; he knew that he had killed Mary Evered as truly as he had killed Dave Riggs many a year ago. He did not put the knowledge into words; nevertheless, it was there, in the recesses of his mind, concrete and ever insistent. And when sorrow and remorse began to prick at him with little pins of fire he told himself, over and over, that she had been frail, and so got eased of the worst edge of pain.

A little after breakfast people began to come to the house. Isaac Gorfinkle was first of them all, and he busied himself with his last ugly preparations. Later the minister came—a boy, or little more; fresh from theological school. His name was Mattice, and he was as prim and meticulous as the traditional maiden lady who is so seldom found in life. He tried to speak unctuous comfort to Evered, but the man’s scowl withered him; he turned to John, and John had to listen to him with what patience could be mustered. And more men came, and stood in groups about the farmyard, smoking, spitting, shaving tiny curls of wood from splinters of pine; and their women went indoors and herded in the front room together, and whispered and sobbed in a hissing chorus indescribably horrible. There is no creation of mankind so hideous as a funeral; there is nothing that should be more beautiful. The hushed voices, the damp scent of flowers, the stifling closeness of tight-windowed rooms, the shuffling of feet, the raw snuffles of those who wept—these sounds filled the house and came out through the open doors to the men, whispering in little groups outside.

Ruth MacLure was not weeping; nor Evered; nor John. And the mourning, sobbing women kissed Ruth and called her brave; and they whispered to each other that Evered was hard, and that John was like his father. And the lugubrious debauch of tears went on interminably, as though Gorfinkle—whose duty it would be to give the word when the time should come—thought these preliminaries were requisites to a successful funeral.

But at last it was impossible to wait longer without going home for dinner, and Gorfinkle, who was accustomed to act as organist on such occasions, took his seat, pumped the treadles and began to play. Then everyone crowded into the front room or stood in the hall; and a woman sang, and young Mattice spoke for a little while, dragging forth verse after verse of sounding phrase which rang nobly even in his shrill and uncertain tones. More singing, more tears. A blur of pictures photographed themselves on Ruth’s eyes; words that she would never forget struck her ears in broken phrases. She sat still, steady and quiet. But her nerves were jangling; and it seemed to the girl she must have screamed aloud if the thing had not ended when it did.

Then the mile-long drive to the hilltop above Fraternity, with its iron fence round about, and the white stones within; and there the brief and solemn words, gentle with grief and glorious with triumphant hope, were spoken above the open grave. And the first clod fell. And by and by the last; and those who had come began to drift away to their homes, to their dinners, to the round of their daily lives.