Chapter XII--Which treats of the obsequies of my Lord of Dunstanwolde, of his lady's widowhood, and of her return to town

A Lady of Quality

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

All that remained of my Lord Dunstanwolde was borne back to his
ancestral home, and there laid to rest in the ancient tomb in which
his fathers slept. Many came from town to pay him respect, and the
Duke of Osmonde was, as was but fitting, among them. The countess
kept her own apartments, and none but her sister, Mistress Anne,
beheld her.

The night before the final ceremonies she spent sitting by her
lord's coffin, and to Anne it seemed that her mood was a stranger
one, than ever woman had before been ruled by. She did not weep or
moan, and only once kneeled down. In her sweeping black robes she
seemed more a majestic creature than she had ever been, and her
beauty more that of a statue than of a mortal woman. She sent away
all other watchers, keeping only her sister with her, and Anne
observed in her a strange protecting gentleness when she spoke of the
dead man.

"I do not know whether dead men can feel and hear," she said.
"Sometimes there has come into my mind--and made me shudder--the
thought that, though they lie so still, mayhap they know what we do-
-and how they are spoken of as nothings whom live men and women but
wait a moment to thrust away, that their own living may go on again
in its accustomed way, or perchance more merrily. If my lord knows
aught, he will be grateful that I watch by him to-night in this
solemn room. He was ever grateful, and moved by any tenderness of
mine."

'Twas as she said, the room was solemn, and this almost to
awfulness. It was a huge cold chamber at best, and draped with
black, and hung with hatchments; a silent gloom filled it which made
it like a tomb. Tall wax-candles burned in it dimly, but adding to
its solemn shadows with their faint light; and in his rich coffin the
dead man lay in his shroud, his hands like carvings of yellowed ivory
clasped upon his breast.

Mistress Anne dared not have entered the place alone, and was so
overcome at sight of the pinched nostrils and sunk eyes that she
turned cold with fear. But Clorinda seemed to feel no dread or
shrinking. She went and stood beside the great funeral-draped bed of
state on which the coffin lay, and thus standing, looked down with a
grave, protecting pity in her face. Then she stooped and kissed the
dead man long upon the brow.

"I will sit by you to-night," she said. "That which lies here
will be alone to-morrow. I will not leave you this last night. Had
I been in your place you would not leave me."

She sat down beside him and laid her strong warm hand upon his
cold waxen ones, closing it over them as if she would give them heat.
Anne knelt and prayed--that all might be forgiven, that sins might be
blotted out, that this kind poor soul might find love and peace in
the kingdom of Heaven, and might not learn there what might make
bitter the memory of his last year of rapture and love. She was so
simple that she forgot that no knowledge of the past could embitter
aught when a soul looked back from Paradise.

Throughout the watches of the night her sister sat and held the
dead man's hand; she saw her more than once smooth his grey hair
almost as a mother might have touched a sick sleeping child's; again
she kissed his forehead, speaking to him gently, as if to tell him he
need not fear, for she was close at hand; just once she knelt, and
Anne wondered if she prayed, and in what manner, knowing that prayer
was not her habit.

'Twas just before dawn she knelt so, and when she rose and stood
beside him, looking down again, she drew from the folds of her robe a
little package.

"Anne," she said, as she untied the ribband that bound it, "when
first I was his wife I found him one day at his desk looking at these
things as they lay upon his hand. He thought at first it would
offend me to find him so; but I told him that I was gentler than he
thought--though not so gentle as the poor innocent girl who died in
giving him his child. 'Twas her picture he was gazing at, and a
little ring and two locks of hair--one a brown ringlet from her head,
and one--such a tiny wisp of down--from the head of her infant. I
told him to keep them always and look at them often, remembering how
innocent she had been, and that she had died for him. There were
tears on my hand when he kissed it in thanking me. He kept the little
package in his desk, and I have brought it to him."

The miniature was of a sweet-faced girl with large loving
childish eyes, and cheeks that blushed like the early morning.
Clorinda looked at her almost with tenderness.

"There is no marrying or giving in marriage, 'tis said," quoth
she; "but were there, 'tis you who were his wife--not I. I was but a
lighter thing, though I bore his name and he honoured me. When you
and your child greet him he will forget me--and all will be well."

She held the miniature and the soft hair to his cold lips a
moment, and Anne saw with wonder that her own mouth worked. She
slipped the ring on his least finger, and hid the picture and the
ringlets within the palms of his folded hands.

"He was a good man," she said; "he was the first good man that I
had ever known." And she held out her hand to Anne and drew her from
the room with her, and two crystal tears fell upon the bosom of her
black robe and slipped away like jewels.

When the funeral obsequies were over, the next of kin who was
heir came to take possession of the estate which had fallen to him,
and the widow retired to her father's house for seclusion from the
world. The town house had been left to her by her deceased lord, but
she did not wish to return to it until the period of her mourning was
over and she laid aside her weeds. The income the earl had been able
to bestow upon her made her a rich woman, and when she chose to
appear again in the world it would be with the power to mingle with
it fittingly.

During her stay at her father's house she did much to make it a
more suitable abode for her, ordering down from London furnishings
and workmen to set her own apartments and Anne's in order. But she
would not occupy the rooms she had lived in heretofore. For some
reason it seemed to be her whim to have begun to have an enmity for
them. The first day she entered them with Anne she stopped upon the
threshold.

"I will not stay here," she said. "I never loved the rooms--and
now I hate them. It seems to me it was another woman who lived in
them- -in another world. 'Tis so long ago that 'tis ghostly. Make
ready the old red chambers for me," to her woman; "I will live there.
They have been long closed, and are worm-eaten and mouldy perchance;
but a great fire will warm them. And I will have furnishings from
London to make them fit for habitation."

The next day it seemed for a brief space as if she would have
changed even from the red chambers.

"I did not know," she said, turning with a sudden movement from
a side window, "that one might see the old rose garden from here. I
would not have taken the room had I guessed it. It is too dreary a
wilderness, with its tangle of briars and its broken sun-dial."

"You cannot see the dial from here," said Anne, coming towards
her with a strange paleness and haste. "One cannot see within the
garden from any window, surely."

"Nay," said Clorinda; "'tis not near enough, and the hedges are
too high; but one knows 'tis there, and 'tis tiresome."

"Let us draw the curtains and not look, and forget it," said
poor Anne. And she drew the draperies with a trembling hand; and
ever after while they dwelt in the room they stayed so.

My lady wore her mourning for more than a year, and in her
sombre trailing weeds was a wonder to behold. She lived in her
father's house, and saw no company, but sat or walked and drove with
her sister Anne, and visited the poor. The perfect stateliness of
her decorum was more talked about than any levity would have been;
those who were wont to gossip expecting that having made her fine
match and been so soon rid of her lord, she would begin to show her
strange wild breeding again, and indulge in fantastical whims. That
she should wear her mourning with unflinching dignity and withdraw
from the world as strictly as if she had been a lady of royal blood
mourning her prince, was the unexpected thing, and so was talked of
everywhere.

At the end of the eighteenth month she sent one day for Anne,
who, coming at her bidding, found her standing in her chamber
surrounded by black robes and draperies piled upon the bed, and
chairs, and floor, their sombreness darkening the room like a cloud;
but she stood in their midst in a trailing garment of pure white, and
in her bosom was a bright red rose tied with a knot of scarlet
ribband, whose ends fell floating. Her woman was upon her knees
before a coffer in which she was laying the weeds as she folded
them.

Mistress Anne paused within the doorway, her eyes dazzled by the
tall radiant shape and blot of scarlet colour as if by the shining of
the sun. She knew in that moment that all was changed, and that the
world of darkness they had been living in for the past months was
swept from existence. When her sister had worn her mourning weeds
she had seemed somehow almost pale; but now she stood in the sunlight
with the rich scarlet on her cheek and lip, and the stars in her
great eyes.

"Come in, sister Anne," she said. "I lay aside my weeds, and my
woman is folding them away for me. Dost know of any poor creature
newly left a widow whom some of them would be a help to? 'Tis a pity
that so much sombreness should lie in chests when there are perhaps
poor souls to whom it would be a godsend."

Before the day was over, there was not a shred of black stuff
left in sight; such as had not been sent out of the house to be
distributed, being packed away in coffers in the garrets under the
leads.

"You will wear it no more, sister?" Anne asked once. "You will
wear gay colours--as if it had never been?"

"It is as if it had never been," Clorinda answered. "Ere now
her lord is happy with her, and he is so happy that I am forgot. I
had a fancy that--perhaps at first--well, if he had looked down on
earth--remembering--he would have seen I was faithful in my honouring
of him. But now, I am sure--"

She stopped with a half laugh. "'Twas but a fancy," she said.
"Perchance he has known naught since that night he fell at my feet--
and even so, poor gentleman, he hath a happy fate. Yes, I will wear
gay colours," flinging up her arms as if she dropped fetters, and
stretched her beauteous limbs for ease--"gay colours--and roses and
rich jewels--and all things--all that will make me beautiful!"

The next day there came a chest from London, packed close with
splendid raiment; when she drove out again in her chariot her
servants' sad-coloured liveries had been laid by, and she was attired
in rich hues, amidst which she glowed like some flower new
bloomed.

Her house in town was thrown open again, and set in order for
her coming. She made her journey back in state, Mistress Anne
accompanying her in her travelling-coach. As she passed over the
highroad with her equipage and her retinue, or spent the night for
rest at the best inns in the towns and villages, all seemed to know
her name and state.

"'Tis the young widow of the Earl of Dunstanwolde," people said
to each other--"she that is the great beauty, and of such a wit and
spirit that she is scarce like a mere young lady. 'Twas said she wed
him for his rank; but afterwards 'twas known she made him a happy
gentleman, though she gave him no heir. She wore weeds for him
beyond the accustomed time, and is but now issuing from her
retirement."

Mistress Anne felt as if she were attending some royal lady's
progress, people so gazed at them and nudged each other, wondered and
admired.

"You do not mind that all eyes rest on you," she said to her
sister; "you are accustomed to be gazed at."

"I have been gazed at all my life," my lady answered; "I scarce
take note of it."

On their arrival at home they met with fitting welcome and
reverence. The doors of the town house were thrown open wide, and in
the hall the servants stood in line, the housekeeper at the head with
her keys at her girdle, the little jet-black negro page grinning
beneath his turban with joy to see his lady again, he worshipping her
as a sort of fetich, after the manner of his race. 'Twas his duty to
take heed to the pet dogs, and he stood holding by their little
silver chains a smart-faced pug and a pretty spaniel. His lady
stopped a moment to pat them and to speak to him a word of praise of
their condition; and being so favoured, he spoke also, rolling his
eyes in his delight at finding somewhat to impart.

"Yesterday, ladyship, when I took them out," he said, "a
gentleman marked them, knowing whose they were. He asked me when my
lady came again to town, and I answered him to-day. 'Twas the fair
gentleman in his own hair."

"'Twas Sir John Oxon, your ladyship," said the lacquey nearest
to him.

Her ladyship left caressing her spaniel and stood upright.
Little Nero was frightened, fearing she was angered; she stood so
straight and tall, but she said nothing and passed on.

At the top of the staircase she turned to Mistress Anne with a
laugh.

"Thy favourite again, Anne," she said. "He means to haunt me,
now we are alone. 'Tis thee he comes after."