She wondered how she knew that you were frightened when Mamma didn't.
Mamma couldn't, because she was brave. She wasn't afraid of the funeral.
When Roddy said, "She oughtn't to have taken us, she ought to have known it would frighten us," Mark was angry with him. He said, "She thought you'd like it, you little beast. Because of the wagonette."
Darling Mamma. She had taken them because she thought they would like it.
Because of the wagonette. Because she was brave, like Mark.
VI.
Dead people really did rise. Supposing all the dead people in the City of London Cemetery rose and came out of their graves and went about the city? Supposing they walked out as far as Ilford? Crowds and crowds of them, in white sheets? Supposing they got into the garden?
"Please, God, keep me from thinking about the Resurrection. Please God, keep me from dreaming about coffins and funerals and ghosts and skeletons and corpses." She said it last, after the blessings, so that God couldn't forget. But it was no use.
If you said texts: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night."
"Yea, though I walk through the City of London Cemetery." It was no use.
"The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall arise … Incorruptible."
That was beautiful. Like a bright light shining. But you couldn't think about it long enough. And the dreams went on just the same: the dream of the ghost in the passage, the dream of the black coffin coming round the turn of the staircase and squeezing you against the banister; the dream of the corpse that came to your bed. She could see the round back and the curled arms under the white sheet.
The dreams woke her with a sort of burst. Her heart was jumping about and thumping; her face and hair were wet with water that came out of her skin.