CHAPTER XXI—HERITAGE
They buried Matthew Lanyon in the quiet churchyard at Ayresford next to the woman who in everything but law had been his wife. Half the small town thronged about the grave in sorrow. All felt that one of the chosen had dwelt in their midst, and that they were poorer by the loss of the kindness of his simple heart and the wisdom of his grey head. The four chief mourners stood a little way apart, close together. Sylvester held the child Dorothy tight by the hand, finding unspeakable comfort in the tiny clasp, and let the tears fall fast and unheeded down his face. The grave seemed a chasm that separated them from the rest of the world. The child, Agatha Lanyon, Ella, and himself stood alone, curiously remote, and united by a new and strange bond. For the first time for many years he felt the preciousness of human relationship. Of aught save this and his irreparable loss, he was unconscious. The crowd was a vague mass dimly seen through a mist of tears. He scarcely heard the old rector's voice reciting the familiar words. But when the first clod of earth clattered sharply upon the coffin-lid, he turned away with a sob; then meeting Ella's swimming eyes, he sought her right hand with his left and holding it turned again. And never so much as at that moment did he need the strength of human tenderness; for looking up he saw standing at the foot of the grave, his ignoble figure defined against the old grey church, Usher wagging his bare head in simulated sorrow and gazing at the last that was visible of his enemy. Then the old man stooped down and threw a lump of earth into the pit; and as he rose Sylvester saw an expression of indescribable malice pass over his face. Quivering at the supreme insult, the young man turned to Ella.
“Thank God,” he said; “nothing can hurt him now.”
The reference was too pointed for her not to comprehend. She questioned him dumbly, feeling suddenly brought to the brink of a revelation.
“It is selfish to wish him back,” said Sylvester.
They remained a few moments longer. The crowd was slowly disappearing through the grey of the early winter twilight. The rector came up with a few words of sympathy and crossed the churchyard towards the rectory. The grave was nearly full.
“Come,” said Ella, gently, and they went to the path where the mourning coach awaited them. They spoke but little. Miss Lanyon cried softly to herself. Ella leaned back on the cushion with closed eyes. She was very weary, spent with emotion; yet the evil spirit of unrest was laid within her. The past upheaval had been phantasmagoric, in which her integral self had been lost amid a whirling army of unreal shapes. Now, brought into contact with an elemental reality, death, and with a deep and simple grief, it had emerged clear and definite. For the first time for many months the vibrations of her soul rang true, soothing her like sweet, sad music after devil's discord. Sylvester's words by the graveside had moved her. She remembered now a pain that had often come into the old man's eyes, and she wondered reverently. Sylvester sat opposite, his arm around Dorothy, who looked up shyly yet gladly into his face, unable to explain to her childish mind this revulsion of passionate love. To him it was a happiness that flooded his soul. The parched places drank it in like the river of life. He was a new man, able to feel in all its sacredness the sorrow that had come.
His temperament had undergone a curious transmutation. Instead of flying, as used to be his wont, to solitude, to brood over his grief, a newly awakened instinct drove him imperiously to companionship.
“Come down soon,” he said to the two ladies when, on their arrival at the house, they went upstairs to take off their things. And they all sat together for the rest of the long evening, and while he talked, Ella wondered at his gentleness.