‘Go, mamma, I ought not to have brought you here; I forgot about infection,’ said Amabel, with the tranquillity which her mother had hoped to shake by her allusion. ‘I am coming.’
She took up Guy’s watch and a book from the table by the bed-side, and came back to her sleeping-room. She wound up the watch, and then allowed her mother to undress her, answering all her inquiries about her health in a gentle, indifferent, matter-of-fact way. She said little of Guy, but that little was without agitation, and in due time she lay down in bed. Still, whenever Mrs. Edmonstone looked at her, there was no sleep in her eyes, and at last she persuaded her to leave her, on the plea that being watched made her more wakeful, as she did not like to see mamma sitting up.
Almost as soon as it was light, Mrs. Edmonstone returned, and was positively frightened, for there stood Amabel, dressed in her white muslin, her white bonnet, and her deep lace wedding-veil. All her glossy hair was hidden away, and her face was placid as ever, though there was a red spot on each cheek. She saw her mother’s alarm, and reassured her by speaking calmly.
‘You know I have nothing else but colours; I should like to wear this, if you will let me.’
‘But, dearest, you must not—cannot go.’
‘It is very near. We often walked there together. I would not if I thought it would hurt me, but I wish it very much indeed. At home by Michaelmas!’
Mrs. Edmonstone yielded, though her mind misgave her, comforted by hoping for the much-desired tears. But Amabel, who used to cry so easily for a trifle, had now not a tear. Her grief was as yet too deep, or perhaps more truly sorrow and mourning had not begun while the influence of her husband’s spirit was about her still.
It was time to set forth, and the small party of mourners met in the long corridor. Mr. Edmonstone would have given his daughter his arm, but she said—
‘I beg your pardon, dear papa, I don’t think I can;’ and she walked alone and firmly.
It was a strange sight that English funeral, so far from England. The bearers were Italian peasants. There was a sheet thrown over the coffin instead of a pall, and this, with the white dress of the young widow, gave the effect of the emblematic whiteness of a child’s funeral; and the impression was heightened by the floating curling white clouds of vapour rising in strange shrouded shadowy forms, like spirit mourners, from the narrow ravines round the grave-yard, and the snowy mountains shining in the morning light against the sky.