Janey sat and stood and knelt, very pale behind her long veil, her black-gloved hands pinching tightly at a little Prayer Book. She was not thinking of Dick. She had been momentarily sorry. It is sad to die at thirty-three. It was Roger she thought of, for already she knew that no will could be found. Roger had told her so on his return from Paris two days ago. A sinister suspicion was gradually taking form in her mind that her mother on her last visit to Dick in Paris had perhaps obtained possession of his will and had destroyed it, in the determination that Harry should succeed. Janey reproached herself for her assumption of her mother's treachery, but the suspicion lurked nevertheless like a shadow at the back of her mind. Was poor Roger to be done out of his inheritance? for by every moral right Hulver ought to be his. Was treachery at work on every side of him? Janey looked fixedly at Annette. Was she not deceiving him too? How calm she looked, how pure, and how beautiful! Yet she had been the mistress of the man lying in his coffin between them. Janey's brain seemed to shake. It could not be. But so it was. She shut her eyes and prayed for Roger, and Dick, and Annette. It was all she could do.
Roger, beside her, kept his eyes fixed on a carved knob in front of him. He knew he must not look round, though he was anxious to know whether Cocks and Sayler had seated the people properly. His mind was as full of detail as a hive is full of bees. He was tired out, and he had earache, but he hardly noticed it. He had laboured unremittingly at the funeral. It was the last thing he could do for Dick, whom he had once been fond of, whom he had known better than anyone, for whom he had worked so ruefully and faithfully; who had caused him so many hours of exasperation, and who had failed and frustrated him at every turn in his work for the estate.
He had arranged everything himself, the distant tenants' meals, the putting up of their horses. He had chosen the bearers, and had seen the gloves and hat-bands distributed, and the church hung with black. His mind travelled over all the arrangements, and he did not think anything had been forgotten. And all the time at the back of his mind also was the thought that no will was forthcoming, even while he followed the service.
"Dick might have left Hulver to me. 'We brought nothing into the world and it is certain we can carry nothing out.' Poor old Dick! I dare say he meant to. But he was too casual, and had a bee in his bonnet. But if he had done nothing else, he ought to have made some provision for Mary Deane and his child. He could not tell Molly would die before him. 'For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday.' Seeing Harry is what he is and Janey is to have Noyes, Dick might have remembered me. I shall have to work the estate for Harry now, I suppose. Doesn't seem quite fair, does it? 'O teach us to number our days: that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.' Never heard Black read the service better. He'll be a bishop some day. And now that Dick has forgotten me, how on earth am I ever to marry? 'Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery.' That's the truest text of the whole lot."
Roger looked once at Annette, and then fixed his eyes once more on the carved finial of the old oaken bench on which he was sitting, where his uncle had sat before him, and where he could just remember seeing his grandfather sit in a blue frock-coat thirty years ago. He looked for the hundredth time at the ragged staff of the Warwicks carved above the bear, the poor bear which had lost its ears if it ever had any. His hand in its split glove closed convulsively on the bear's head. How was he going to marry Annette!
Annette's eyes rested on the flower-covered coffin in front of her, but she did not see it. She was back in the past. She was kneeling by Dick's bed with her cheek against the pillow, while his broken voice whispered, "The wind is coming again, and I am going with it."
The kind wind had taken the poor leaf at last, the drifting shredded leaf.
And then she felt Roger look at her, and other thoughts suddenly surged up. Was it possible—was it possible—that Dick might part her and Roger? Their eyes met for an instant across the coffin.
Already Roger looked remote, as if like Dick he were sinking into the past. She felt a light touch on her hand. The choir had risen for the anthem.