“Come on,” she said to us. “We are late as it is. Such a squeeze with that coffin at the head of the stairs! She was a fine woman. I want, if I can, to catch a late train back to Southsea. There are my lodgers to look after. I’ve only left the girl in charge.”
“Do you keep a lodging house?” Orion asked mechanically, snatching up his hat with the deep black band.
“Yes,” she said shortly; “I must do something.”
We all three wedged into the passage. Orion was last. Clara Citron marched out, a compact, trim figure in cheap black, between the thin line of sickly London faces. She wore a solemn, festival sort of air. I followed, feeling very awkward and uncomfortable in the frock-coat I had borrowed from Wood: he got it out of pawn for the occasion. I never owned a frock coat in my life, and hope I never shall. It is one of those respectable, stultifying possessions that I refrain from on principle.
I looked back for Orion. He was wavering on the step, as if he felt afraid to walk between those lines of white faces which stretched from the door to the coach. Then I saw him give a hasty look into the house, at the passage, the stairs, muddy with so many feet. Then he seemed to come headlong to the coach. I thought he had slipped on something. He jumped in and banged the door furiously. The crowd gave a soft, sympathetic “boo” at the sight of his ghastly face. Clara Citron, who held a new handkerchief with a very wide border to her dry eyes, looked over the hem.
That terrible long drive to Finchley! That shimmering line of faces all the way! I went to Jimmy’s funeral, I went to Chaytor’s, and I went to Mrs. Grigg’s—under protest. I will never go to another, unless it is my own—that will be unavoidable.
The Great Ormond Street murder made a tremendous sensation. I think Clara Citron thoroughly enjoyed herself. She seemed to regard the crowd in the light of a personal ovation.
Did I tell you that it was May?—a wet, warm May morning. At Finchley, away from the houses, the rain seemed to fall more softly. In the cemetery all sorts of pink and white and purple bushes were in bloom. They reminded me of my childhood; I was born in the country. The great, intensely green stretches of grass were hideously humped with graves. The soft, rushing rain seemed to make them greener every moment.
I forgot to mention that Clara Citron coolly took the whole of the seat facing the horses. It was the best position for seeing the people, and it allowed the people to have a good view of her. She spread her skirt out carefully and kept the handkerchief to her eyes, peering furtively all the time. Orion and I sat as far back as we could on the cushions—those dusty, pluffy cushions which reeked of a thousand stale griefs. We tried to get beyond the range of those gimlet-like eyes which pointed in their hundreds, from the pavements. Once Orion said, in a queer, strained voice:
“For God’s sake let me get out and walk.”