“I must! I will!” she muttered, as it were in reply, and her eye glared upon the opened door, as she heard a voice and footsteps without; and the thought smote her:—
“Should it be now! Come for the sacrifice! Ha!”
CHAPTER XXXVIII. — THE PALL UPON THE COFFIN.
The noise which arrested the attention of Margaret Cooper, and kindled her features into an expression of wild and fiery ferocity, was of innocent origin. The widow Thackeray was the intruder. Her kindness, sympathy, and unwearied attentions, so utterly in conflict with the estimates hitherto made of her heart and character, by Mrs Cooper, had, in some degree, disarmed the censures of that excellent mother, if they had not wholly changed her sentiments. She professed to be very grateful to Thackeray's attentions, and, without making any profession, Margaret certainly showed her that she felt them. She now only pointed the widow to the corpse of the child, in that one action telling to the other all that was yet unknown. Then she seated herself composedly, folded her hands, and, beside the corpse, forgot its presence, forgot the presence of all—heard no voice, save that of the assiduous demon whom nothing could expel from her companionship.
“Poor little thing!” murmured the widow Thackeray, as she proceeded to assist Mrs. Cooper in decking it for the grave.
The duty was finally done. Its burial was appointed for the morrow.
A village funeral is necessarily an event of some importance. The lack of excitements in small communities, in vests even sorrow and grief and death with a peculiar interest in the eyes of curiosity. On the present occasion, all the villagers attended. The funeral itself might have sufficed to collect them with few exceptions; but now there was a more eager influence still, working upon the gossippy moods of the population. To see Margaret Cooper in her affliction—to see that haughty spirit humbled and made ashamed—was, we fear, a motive, in the minds of many, much stronger than the ostensible occasion might have awakened. Had Margaret been a fashionable woman, in a great city, she might have disappointed the vulgar desire, by keeping to her chamber. Nay, even according to the free-and-easy standards prevailing at Charlemont, she might have done the same thing, and incurred no additional scandal.
It was, indeed, to the surprise of a great many, that she made her appearance. It was still more a matter of surprise—nay, pious and virgin horror—that she seemed to betray neither grief nor shame, surrounded as she was by all whom she knew, and all, in particular, whom, in the day of her pride, she had kept at a distance.