It was a great funeral. All the important people of that side of the county—or their carriages—were there. An hour before the cortège arrived, Sir Giles’ chair, an object of curiosity to all the village boys, was brought down to the gate of the churchyard, that he might follow his wife to the grave’s side. And a great excitement had arisen in the village itself. Under any circumstances, Lady Piercey’s funeral, the carriages and the flowers, and the mutes and the black horses, would have produced an impression; but that impression was increased now by the excitement of a very different kind which mingled with it. Patty Hewitt, of the Seven Thorns, now Mrs. Gervase Piercey, would be there; and there was not a house, from the Rectory downwards, in which the question was not discussed—what would happen? Would Patty receive the tacit recognition of being allowed to take her place along with her husband. Her husband! could he be anybody’s husband, the Softy? Would the marriage stand? Would Sir Giles allow it? The fact that it was Sir Giles gave the eager spectators their only doubt—or hope. Had it been Lady Piercey, she would never have allowed it. She would have thrown back the pretender from the very church-door. She would have rejected Patty, thrust her out of the way, seized her son, and dragged him from the girl who had entrapped him. At the very church-door! Everybody, from the rector down to the sexton’s wife, felt perfectly convinced of that.
But it would not be Lady Piercey she would have to deal with. Lady Piercey, though she filled so great a position in the ceremonial, would have nothing to say on the subject; and it was part of the irony of fate, felt by everybody, though none were sufficiently instructed to call it by that name, that she should be there, incapable of taking any share in what would have moved her so deeply—triumphed over in her coffin by the adversary with whom, living, she would have made such short work. There was something tragic about this situation which made the bystanders hold their breath. And no one knew what Patty was about to do. That she would claim her share in the celebration, and, somehow, manage to take a part in it, no one doubted; but how she was to accomplish this was the exciting uncertainty that filled all minds. It troubled the rector as he put on his surplice to meet the silent new-comer, approaching with even more pomp than was her wont the familiar doors of her parish church. There was not much more sentiment than is inseparable from that last solemnity in the minds of her neighbours towards Lady Piercey. She had not been without kindness of a practical kind. Doles had been made and presents given in the conventional way without any failure; but nobody had loved the grim old lady. There was nothing, therefore, to take off the interest in the other more exciting crisis.
“Rattle her bones
Over the stones,
She’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns.”
Far from a pauper was the Lady Piercey of Greyshott; but the effect was the same. There are many equalising circumstances in death.
It was imposing to witness the black procession coming slowly along the sunshiny road. Old Miss Hewitt from Rose Cottage came out to view it, taking up a conspicuous position on the churchyard wall. So far from wearing decorous black in reverence of the funeral, Miss Hewitt was dressed in all that was most remarkable in her wardrobe in the way of colour. She wore a green dress; she had a large Paisley shawl of many colours—an article with which the present generation is virtually unacquainted—on her shoulders, and her bonnet was trimmed with gold lace and flowers. She had a conviction that Sir Giles would see her, and that he would perceive the difference between her still handsome face, and unbroken height and carriage, and the old ugly wife whom he was burying—poor old Sir Giles, entirely broken down by weakness and the breach of all his habits and ways, as well as by the feeling, not very elevated perhaps, but grievous enough, of loss, in one who had managed everything for him, and taken all trouble from his shoulders! There might be some emotion deeper still in the poor old gentleman’s mind; but these at least were there, enough to make his dull eyes, always moist with slow-coming tears, quite incapable of the vision or contrast in which that fierce old woman hoped.
The interest of the moment concentrated round the lych-gate, where a great deal was to take place. Already conspicuous among the crowd assembled there to meet the funeral were two figures, the chief of whom was veiled from head to foot in crape, and leant upon the arm of her husband heavily, as if overcome with grief. Patty had a deep crape veil, behind which was visible a white handkerchief often pressed to her eyes, and in the other hand, a large wreath. Gervase stood beside her, in black clothes to be sure, and with a deep hatband covering his hat, but with no such monumental aspect of woe. His light and wandering eyes strayed over the scene, arresting themselves upon nothing, not even on the approaching procession. Sometimes Patty almost bent him down on the side on which she leant, by a new access of grief. Her shoulders heaved, her sobs were audible, when the head of the doleful procession arrived. She moved her husband forward to lay the wreath upon the coffin and then lifting her great veil for a moment looked on with an air of agonising anxiety, while Sir Giles was lifted out of the carriage and placed in his chair, with little starts of anxious feeling as if he were being touched roughly by the attendants, and she could scarcely restrain herself from taking him out of their hands. It was a pity that poor old Sir Giles, entirely absorbed in his own sensations, did not observe this at all, any more than he observed the airs of Miss Hewitt equally intended for his notice. But when Sir Giles had been placed in his chair, Patty recovering her energy in a moment, dragged her husband forward and dexterously slid and pushed him immediately behind his father’s chair, coming sharply in contact as she did so with Colonel Piercey, who was about to take that place. “I beg your pardon, we are the chief mourners,” she said sharply, and with decision. And then Patty relapsed all at once into her grief. She walked slowly forward half-leading, half-pushing Gervase, her shoulders heaving with sobs, a murmur of half-audible affliction coming in as a sort of half-refrain to the words read by the clergyman. The village crowding round, watched with bated breath. It was difficult for these spectators to refuse a murmur of applause. How beautifully she did it? What a mourner she made, far better than any one else there! As for that Mrs. Osborne, her veil was only gauze, and through it you could see that she was not crying at all! She walked by Colonel Piercey’s side, but she did not lean upon him as if she required support. There was no heaving in her shoulders. The mind of the village approved the demeanour of Patty with enthusiasm. It was something like! Even Miss Hewitt, flaunting her red and yellow bonnet on the churchyard wall, was impressed by the appearance of Patty, and acknowledged that it was deeply appropriate, and just exactly what she ought to have done.
But though Patty was thus overcome with grief, her vigilant eyes noted everything through the white handkerchief and the crape. When poor Sir Giles broke down and began to sob at the grave it was she who, with an energetic push and pressure, placed Gervase by his side.
“Speak to him,” she whispered in his ear, with a voice which though so low was imperative as any order. She leaned herself over the other side of the chair, almost pushing Dunning out of the way, while still maintaining her pressure on Gervase’s arm.
“Father,” he said, putting his hand upon the old man’s; he was not to say too much, she had instructed him! Only his name, or a kind word. Gervase, poor fellow, did not know how to say a kind word, but his dull imagination had been stirred and the contagion of his father’s feeble distress moved him. He began to sob, too, leaning heavily upon Sir Giles’ chair. Not that he knew very well what was the cause. The great shining oaken chest that was being lowered down into that hole had no association for him. He had not seen his mother placed there. But the gloomy ceremonial affected Gervase in spite of himself. Happily it did not move him to laugh, which was on the cards, as Patty felt. It made him cry, which was everything that could be desired.
And Sir Giles did not push away his son’s hand, which was what might have happened also. The old gentleman was in precisely the state of mind to feel that touch and the sound of the wavering voice. It was a return of the prodigal when the poor old father’s heart was very forlorn, and the sensation of having some one still who belonged to him most welcome. To be sure there was Colonel Piercey—but he would go away, and was not in any sense a son of the house. And Meg—but she was a dependant, perhaps pleased to think she would have nobody over her now. Gervase was his father’s own, come back; equally feeble, not shaming his father by undue self-control. To hear his boy sob was sweet to the old man; it did him more good than Dunning’s whispered adjurations not to fret, to “think of your own ’ealth,” to “ ’old up, Sir Giles!” When he felt the hand of Gervase and heard his helpless son sob, a flash of force came to the old man.