CHAPTER XXVIII.
Elizabeth spent the greatest part of her holiday in that house, in that room. Nobody interfered with her; nobody asked in what relation she stood to the deceased, or what right she had to take upon herself the arrangements for his funeral. Every body was only too glad to let her assume a responsibility which would otherwise have fallen on the parish.
The only person who appeared to remember either her or the dead man was the druggist's assistant, who sent in the necessary medical certificate as to the cause of death. Elizabeth took it to the Registrar, and thence proceeded to an undertaker hard by, with whom she arranged all about the funeral, and that it should took place in the new cemetery at Kensal Green. She thought she should like that better than a close, noisy London church yard.
Before she left the house she saw poor Tom laid in his coffin, and covered up forever from mortal eyes. Then, and not till then, she sat herself down beside him and wept.
Nobody contested with her the possession of the few things that had belonged to him, which were scarcely more than the clothes he had on when he died; so she made them up into a parcel and took them away with her. In his waistcoat pocket she found one book, a little Testament, which she had given him herself. It looked as if it had been a good deal read. If all his studies, all his worship of "pure intellect," as the one supreme good, had ended in that, it was a blessed ending.
When she reached home Elizabeth went at once to her master, returned him his letter of recommendation, and explained to him that his kindness was not needed now.
Mr. Ascott seemed a good deal shocked, inquired from her a few particulars, and again took out his purse, his one panacea for all mortal woes. But Elizabeth declined; she said she would only ask him for an advance of her next half-year's wages. She preferred burying her old friend herself.
She buried him, herself the only mourner, on a bright summer's day, with the sun shining dazzlingly on the white grave stones in Kensal Green. The clergyman appeared, read the service, and went away again. A few minutes ended it all. When the undertaker and his men had also departed, she sat down on a bench near to watch the sexton filling up the grave—Tom's grave. She was very quiet, and none but a closely observant person watching her face could have penetrated into the truth of what your impulsive characters, always in the extremes of mirth or misery, never understand about quiet people, that "still waters run deep."
While she sat there some one came past her, and turned round. It was the shabby-looking chemist's assistant, who had a appeared at the inquest, and given the satisfactory evidence which had prevented the necessity of her giving-hers.
Elizabeth rose and acknowledged him with a respectable courtesy; for under his threadbare clothes was the bearing of a gentleman, and he had been so kind to Tom.