Eustace Marchmont: A friend of the people

by Evelyn Everett-Green

Eustace bent his head in voiceless assent. He could not say nay to such an invitation, albeit he thought that there was something morbid in the feeling which prompted it. Habituated to foreign ways and customs, this keeping of the dead unburied for so many days was in his eyes slightly repulsive; but he followed the noiseless steps of his guide, and was at last ushered into a large dim room, lighted by many wax tapers, the light of which seemed, however, absorbed into the heavy black draperies with which the walls were hung.

In this sombre apartment the Duchess had lain in state (if such a phrase might be used) for many days. The whole population of St. Bride and St. Erme had combined to plead for a last look upon her who in life had been so greatly beloved; and both the Duke and his daughter had been touched by the request, which was promptly gratified.

And so Eustace now found himself before a prostrate figure that bore the likeness of a marble effigy, but was clad in soft white robes of sheeny texture, the fine dark hair being dressed as in life, and crowned by the film of priceless lace which the Duchess was wont to wear. Tall lilies in pots made a background for the recumbent figure, and the wax tapers cast their light most fully upon the tranquil face of the dead. And when once the eye rested on that face, the accessories were all forgotten. Eustace looked, and a great awe and wonder fell upon him. Bride looked, and her face kindled with that expression which he marked upon it when first he had seen her, and which afterwards, when he heard the words, seemed to him best described in this phrase, “Death is swallowed up of victory.”

She knelt down beside the couch on which all that was mortal of her mother lay, and when Eustace turned his eyes away from the peaceful face of the dead, it was to let them rest for a moment upon the ecstatic countenance of the living.

But after one glance he softly retired, unnoticed by Bride, and shut the door behind him noiselessly.

In the shelter of his own room the sense of mystic awe and wonder that possessed him fell away by degrees. He paced up and down, lost in thought, and presently a frown clouded the eyes that had been till now full of pity and sympathy.

“She looks as though she had been living with the dead till she is more spirit than flesh. How can they let her? It is enough to kill her or send her mad! Well, thank heaven, the funeral is to-morrow. After that this sort of thing must cease. Poor child, poor girl! A father who seems to have no knowledge of her existence, her mother snatched away in middle life. And she does not look made of the stuff that forgets either. She will have a hard time of it in the days to come. I wonder if she will let me help her, if I can in any wise comfort her. That must be a heart worth winning, if one had but the key.”

Upon the forenoon of the next day the funeral of the Duchess was celebrated with all the pomp and sombre show incident to such occasions in the days of which we write. Bride did not accompany the sable procession as it left the castle and wound down the hill. Women did not appear in public on such occasions then; and she only watched from a turret window the mournful cortège as it set forth, the servants of the household forming in rank behind the coaches, and walking in procession in the rear, and as the gates were reached, being followed in turn by almost every man, woman, and child within a radius of five miles, the whole making such a procession as had never been seen in the place before.

Hitherto the girl had been supported by the feeling that her mother, although dead, was still with her; that she could gaze on that dear face at will, feel the shadowing presence of her great love, and know something of the hallowing brooding peace which rested upon the quiet face of the dead. Moreover, she was upheld all these days by a wild visionary hope that perhaps even yet her mother would be restored to her. Her intense faith in the power of God made it easy to her to imagine that in answer to her fervent prayer the soul might be restored to its tenement—the dead raised up to life. If the prayer of faith could move mountains—if all things were possible to him that believeth, why might not she believe that her own faith, her own prayer, might be answered after this manner? Had not men been given back from the dead before now? Why not this precious life, so bound up in her own and in the hearts of so many?

Thus the girl had argued, and thus she had spent her days and her nights in fasting and prayer, raised up above the level of earth by her absorbing hope and faith, till she had almost grown to believe that the desired miracle would become a reality. And now that the dream was ended, now that she stood watching the disappearance of that long procession, and knew that God had not answered her prayers, had not rewarded her faith as she felt it deserved to be rewarded, a strange leaden heaviness fell upon her spirit. The reaction from the ecstatic fervour of spirit set in with somewhat merciless force. She felt that the earth was iron and the heavens brass, that there was none below to love her, none above to hear her. A sense akin to terror suddenly possessed her. She turned from her post of observation and fled downwards. She felt choking, and craved the fresh salt air, which had not kissed her cheek for more than this eternity of a week. At the foot of the turret was a door opening into the garden. She fled down, and found herself in the open air, and with hasty steps she passed through the deserted gardens till she came to the great glass conservatory, which had been erected at no small cost for the winter resort of the Duchess since she became so much the invalid; and flinging herself down upon the couch which still stood in its accustomed place in the recess made for it, the girl burst into wild weeping, and beat her head against the cushions in a frenzy akin to despair.