The burial service was nothing to Edwin. There was no consolation in it nor, to him, the least atom of religious feeling. A mockery, a mockery, a solemn and pretentious mockery. For she was dead . . . she had vanished altogether, and the thing that they were burying with muttered formulas and tears was no more she than the empty parchment of the cocoon is the glowing butterfly. Let them cry their eyes out. That was not grief. Beyond tears. Beyond tears. . . .
With a curious air of relief that was very near to a furtive gaiety, the party drove back and reassembled in the dining-room. All except Mr. Ingleby. “He has gone to his room, poor dear,” said Aunt Laura, with her nervous laugh. “Mrs. Barrow, do have a slice of ginger-cake. Just a little?” Round the long table conversation began to flow, cautiously at first, but with an increasing confidence, when it became clear that it was unattended by any revengeful consequences.
“Didn’t you think it was awfully nice to see the people in High Street so respectful, Mrs. Willis?” said Aunt Laura. Edwin looked up. This then was the Mrs. Willis of Mawne Hall with whom his mother had planned the visit to Switzerland. He saw a middle-aged woman in black satin, with a gold watch-chain round her neck and jet in her bonnet. She caught his interested eyes and in return smiled. Aunt Laura went unanswered. “I wonder,” Edwin thought, “if she understands what a fraud the whole thing is.” At any rate she looked kind . . . and she had been kind to his mother too. A moment later she said good-bye, and when Aunt Laura had escorted her to the door, for Mrs. Willis was a person of consequence, the rest of the company began to disappear. At last Edwin was left alone in the room with his aunt and uncle. Aunt Laura’s face, that had been glowing with hospitable smiles, now took a more serious cast.
“Edwin,” she said, “I want to speak to you.”
“Do you?” said Edwin. “Well . . . go on.”
“It’s very painful . . . I’m afraid . . . I’m half afraid that it will have upset your father, poor man—as if he hadn’t enough to put up with.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“How can you ask? I mean your behaviour to-day. In the church. In the cemetery. You stood there just as if . . . just as if . . . oh, it was most irreverent. Not a sign of grief! You must have noticed it, Albert?”
Uncle Albert, most uncomfortable at his inclusion in this family scene, but fully aware of the disaster which would follow denial, said, “Yes . . . yes . . . yes, certainly.”
“Every one must have noticed it,” Aunt Laura went on. “It was a public scandal. It was unnatural. It showed such a curious lack of feeling.”