“Thank you. You have ever been my loving friend, mother.”
“Ever, Geoffry?”
“Well—you did for the best there, mother; though it was a mistake. You acted for what you thought my welfare.”
“Would you not like to see her, Geoffry?”
“I have seen her and bidden her farewell. It was the afternoon I went to Duffham’s and you said that I stayed out too late. And now I think I’ll lie down on the sofa, and get, if I can, a bit of sleep; I feel tired. To-morrow I will talk about you and Rachel—and what will be best for you both. I wish to my heart, for your sake and hers, that Rachel had borne a son; I am thinking of you both daily, and of what you will do when I am gone.”
“I shall never know pleasure in life again, Geoffry,” she cried, with a heartbroken sob. “Life for me will be, henceforth, one of mortification and misery.”
“But it will not last for ever. Oh, mother! how merciful God is!—to give us the blessed hope of an eternal life of perfect happiness, after all the mistakes and tribulations and disappointments of this! My darling mother! we shall all be there in sweet companionship for ever.”
They buried Sir Geoffry Chavasse by the side of his father—and any one who likes to go there may see his tomb against the graveyard wall of Church Dykely. My Lady Chavasse arranged the funeral. The Earl of Derreston and a Major Chavasse were chief mourners, with other grand people. Duffham’s diary gives the particulars, but there is no space here to record them. Duffham was bidden to it; and brought Arthur Layne in his hand to the Grange, in obedience to a private word of my lady’s—for she knew the dead, if he could look out of his coffin, would like to see Arthur following. So the procession started, a long line; the village gazing in admiration as it passed; and Dobbs the blacksmith felt as proud as ever was the Grange peacock, when he saw Colonel Layne’s little son in a coach, amidst the gentlefolks. ’Twere out of respect to the colonel’s bravery, you might be sure, he told a select audience: and p’r’aps a bit because o’ that back accident to the child hisself. And so, amidst pomps, and coaches, and comments, Geoffry Chavasse was left in his last home.