"Have the neighbors gone?" I asked.
"There's a couple or so round, and will be, you know. I'll take Verry to bed, and sleep on the floor by her. You go to your father."
He was in their bedroom, on the bed. She was lying on a frame of wood, covered with canvas, a kind of bed which went from house to house in Surrey, on occasions of sickness or death.
"Our last night together has passed," he said in a tremulous voice, while scanty tears fell from his seared eyes. "The space between then and now—when her arm was round me, when she slept beside me, when I woke from a bad dream, and she talked gently close to my face, till I slept again—is so narrow that I recall it with a sense of reality which agonizes me; it is so immeasurable when I see her there—there, that I am crushed."
If I had had any thought of speaking to him, it was gone. And I must go too. Were the hands folded across her breast, where I, also, had slept? Were the blue eyes closed that had watched me there? I should never see. A shroud covered her from all eyes but his now. Till I closed the door upon him, I looked my last farewell. An elderly woman met me as I was going upstairs, and offered me a small packet; it was her hair. "It was very long," she said. I tried in vain to thank her. "I will place it in a drawer for you," she said kindly.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The house was thronged till after the funeral. We sat in state, to be condoled with and waited upon. Not a jot of the customary rites was abated, though I am sure the performers thereof had small encouragement. Veronica alone would see no one; her room was the only one not invaded; for the neighbors took the house into their hands, assisted by that part of the Morgesons who were too distantly related to consider themselves as mourners to be shut up with us. It was put under rigorous funeral law, and inspected from garret to cellar. They supervised all the arrangements, if there were any that they did not make, received the guests who came from a distance, and aided their departure. Every child in Surrey was allowed to come in, to look at the dead, with the idle curiosity of childhood. Veronica knew nothing of this. Her course was taken for granted; mine was imposed upon me. I remonstrated with Temperance, but she replied that it was all well meant, and always done. I endured the same annoyances over and over again, from relays of people. Bed-time especially was their occasion. I was not allowed to undress alone. I must have drinks, either to compose or stimulate; I must have something read to me; I must be watched when I slept, or I must be kept awake to give advice or be told items of news. All the while, like a chorus, they reiterated the character, the peculiarities, the virtues of the mother I had lost, who could never be replaced—who was in a better world. However, I was, in a measure, kept from myself during this interval. The matter is often subservient to the manner. Arthur's feelings were played upon also. He wept often, confiding to me his grief and his plans for the future. "If people would die at the age of seventy-five, things would go well," he said, "for everybody must expect to die then; the Bible says so." He informed me also that he expected to be an architect, and that mother liked it. He had an idea, which he had imparted to her, of an arch; it must be made of black marble, with gold veins, and ought to stand in Egypt, with the word "Pandemonium" on it. The kitchen was the focus of interest to him, for meals were prepared at all hours for comers and goers. Temperance told me that the mild and indifferent mourners were fond of good victuals, and she thought their hearts were lighter than their stomachs when they went away. She presided there and wrangled with Fanny, who seemed to have lost her capacity for doing anything steadily, except, as Temperance said, where father was concerned. "It's a pity she isn't his dog; she might keep at his feet then. I found her crying awfully yesterday, because he looked so grief-struck."
Aunt Merce was engaged with a dressmaker, and with the orders for bonnets and veils. She discussed the subject of the mourning with the Morgesons. I acquiesced in all her arrangements, for she derived a simple comfort from these external tokens. Veronica refused to wear the bonnet and veil and the required bombazine. Bombazine made her flesh crawl. Why should she wear it? Mother hated it, too, for she had never worn out the garments made for Grand'ther Warren.
"She's a bigger child than ever," Temperance remarked, "and must have her way."
"Do you think the border on my cap is too deep?" asked Aunt Merce, coming into my room dressed for the funeral.