He did not know many facts of the case, but could not help instinctively a.s.sociating Elfride"s fickleness with the marriage of her father, and their introduction to London society. He closed the iron gate bounding the shrubbery as noiselessly as he had opened it, and went into the gra.s.sy field. Here he could see the old vicarage, the house alone that was a.s.sociated with the sweet pleasant time of his incipient love for Elfride. Turning sadly from the place that was no longer a nook in which his thoughts might nestle when he was far away, he wandered in the direction of the east village, to reach his father"s house before they retired to rest.
The nearest way to the cottage was by crossing the park. He did not hurry. Happiness frequently has reason for haste, but it is seldom that desolation need scramble or strain. Sometimes he paused under the low-hanging arms of the trees, looking vacantly on the ground.
Stephen was standing thus, scarcely less crippled in thought than he was blank in vision, when a clear sound permeated the quiet air about him, and spread on far beyond. The sound was the stroke of a bell from the tower of East Endelstow Church, which stood in a dell not forty yards from Lord Luxellian"s mansion, and within the park enclosure. Another stroke greeted his ear, and gave character to both: then came a slow succession of them.
"Somebody is dead," he said aloud.
The death-knell of an inhabitant of the eastern parish was being tolled.
An unusual feature in the tolling was that it had not been begun according to the custom in Endelstow and other parishes in the neighbourhood. At every death the s.e.x and age of the deceased were announced by a system of changes. Three times three strokes signified that the departed one was a man; three times two, a woman; twice three, a boy; twice two, a girl. The regular continuity of the tolling suggested that it was the resumption rather than the beginning of a knell--the opening portion of which Stephen had not been near enough to hear.
The momentary anxiety he had felt with regard to his parents pa.s.sed away. He had left them in perfect health, and had any serious illness seized either, a communication would have reached him ere this. At the same time, since his way homeward lay under the churchyard yews, he resolved to look into the belfry in pa.s.sing by, and speak a word to Martin Cannister, who would be there.
Stephen reached the brow of the hill, and felt inclined to renounce his idea. His mood was such that talking to any person to whom he could not unburden himself would be wearisome. However, before he could put any inclination into effect, the young man saw from amid the trees a bright light shining, the rays from which radiated like needles through the sad plumy foliage of the yews. Its direction was from the centre of the churchyard.
Stephen mechanically went forward. Never could there be a greater contrast between two places of like purpose than between this graveyard and that of the further village. Here the gra.s.s was carefully tended, and formed virtually a part of the manor-house lawn; flowers and shrubs being planted indiscriminately over both, whilst the few graves visible were mathematically exact in shape and smoothness, appearing in the daytime like chins newly shaven. There was no wall, the division between G.o.d"s Acre and Lord Luxellian"s being marked only by a few square stones set at equidistant points. Among those persons who have romantic sentiments on the subject of their last dwelling-place, probably the greater number would have chosen such a spot as this in preference to any other: a few would have fancied a constraint in its trim neatness, and would have preferred the wild hill-top of the neighbouring site, with Nature in her most negligent attire.
The light in the churchyard he next discovered to have its source in a point very near the ground, and Stephen imagined it might come from a lantern in the interior of a partly-dug grave. But a nearer approach showed him that its position was immediately under the wall of the aisle, and within the mouth of an archway. He could now hear voices, and the truth of the whole matter began to dawn upon him. Walking on towards the opening, Smith discerned on his left hand a heap of earth, and before him a flight of stone steps which the removed earth had uncovered, leading down under the edifice. It was the entrance to a large family vault, extending under the north aisle.
Stephen had never before seen it open, and descending one or two steps stooped to look under the arch. The vault appeared to be crowded with coffins, with the exception of an open central s.p.a.ce, which had been necessarily kept free for ingress and access to the sides, round three of which the coffins were stacked in stone bins or niches.
The place was well lighted with candles stuck in slips of wood that were fastened to the wall. On making the descent of another step the living inhabitants of the vault were recognizable. They were his father the master-mason, an under-mason, Martin Cannister, and two or three young and old labouring-men. Crowbars and workmen"s hammers were scattered about. The whole company, sitting round on coffins which had been removed from their places, apparently for some alteration or enlargement of the vault, were eating bread and cheese, and drinking ale from a cup with two handles, pa.s.sed round from each to each.
"Who is dead?" Stephen inquired, stepping down.
Chapter XXVI
"To that last nothing under earth."
All eyes were turned to the entrance as Stephen spoke, and the ancient-mannered conclave scrutinized him inquiringly.
"Why, "tis our Stephen!" said his father, rising from his seat; and, still retaining the frothy mug in his left hand, he swung forward his right for a grasp. "Your mother is expecting ye--thought you would have come afore dark. But you"ll wait and go home with me? I have all but done for the day, and was going directly."
"Yes, "tis Master Stephy, sure enough. Glad to see you so soon again, Master Smith," said Martin Cannister, chastening the gladness expressed in his words by a strict neutrality of countenance, in order to harmonize the feeling as much as possible with the solemnity of a family vault.
"The same to you, Martin; and you, William," said Stephen, nodding around to the rest, who, having their mouths full of bread and cheese, were of necessity compelled to reply merely by compressing their eyes to friendly lines and wrinkles.
"And who is dead?" Stephen repeated.
"Lady Luxellian, poor gentlewoman, as we all shall, said the under-mason. "Ay, and we be going to enlarge the vault to make room for her."
"When did she die?"
"Early this morning," his father replied, with an appearance of recurring to a chronic thought. "Yes, this morning. Martin hev been tolling ever since, almost. There, "twas expected. She was very limber."
"Ay, poor soul, this morning," resumed the under-mason, a marvellously old man, whose skin seemed so much too large for his body that it would not stay in position. "She must know by this time whether she"s to go up or down, poor woman."
"What was her age?"
"Not more than seven or eight and twenty by candlelight. But, Lord! by day "a was forty if "a were an hour."
"Ay, night-time or day-time makes a difference of twenty years to rich feymels," observed Martin.
"She was one and thirty really," said John Smith. "I had it from them that know."
"Not more than that!"
""A looked very bad, poor lady. In faith, ye might say she was dead for years afore "a would own it."
"As my old father used to say, "dead, but wouldn"t drop down.""
"I seed her, poor soul," said a labourer from behind some removed coffins, "only but last Valentine"s-day of all the world. "A was arm in crook wi" my lord. I says to myself, "You be ticketed Churchyard, my n.o.ble lady, although you don"t dream on"t.""
"I suppose my lord will write to all the other lords anointed in the nation, to let "em know that she that was is now no more?"
""Tis done and past. I see a bundle of letters go off an hour after the death. Sich wonderful black rims as they letters had--half-an-inch wide, at the very least."
"Too much," observed Martin. "In short, "tis out of the question that a human being can be so mournful as black edges half-an-inch wide. I"m sure people don"t feel more than a very narrow border when they feels most of all."
"And there are two little girls, are there not?" said Stephen.
"Nice clane little faces!--left motherless now."
"They used to come to Parson Swancourt"s to play with Miss Elfride when I were there," said William Worm. "Ah, they did so"s!" The latter sentence was introduced to add the necessary melancholy to a remark which, intrinsically, could hardly be made to possess enough for the occasion. "Yes," continued Worm, "they"d run upstairs, they"d run down; flitting about with her everywhere. Very fond of her, they were. Ah, well!"
"Fonder than ever they were of their mother, so "tis said here and there," added a labourer.
"Well, you see, "tis natural. Lady Luxellian stood aloof from "em so--was so drowsy-like, that they couldn"t love her in the jolly-companion way children want to like folks. Only last winter I seed Miss Elfride talking to my lady and the two children, and Miss Elfride wiped their noses for em" SO careful--my lady never once seeing that it wanted doing; and, naturally, children take to people that"s their best friend."
"Be as "twill, the woman is dead and gone, and we must make a place for her," said John. "Come, lads, drink up your ale, and we"ll just rid this corner, so as to have all clear for beginning at the wall, as soon as "tis light to-morrow."
Stephen then asked where Lady Luxellian was to lie.
"Here," said his father. "We are going to set back this wall and make a recess; and "tis enough for us to do before the funeral. When my lord"s mother died, she said, "John, the place must be enlarged before another can be put in." But "a never expected "twould be wanted so soon. Better move Lord George first, I suppose, Simeon?"
He pointed with his foot to a heavy coffin, covered with what had originally been red velvet, the colour of which could only just be distinguished now.
"Just as ye think best, Master John," replied the shrivelled mason. "Ah, poor Lord George!" he continued, looking contemplatively at the huge coffin; "he and I were as bitter enemies once as any could be when one is a lord and t"other only a mortal man. Poor fellow! He"d clap his hand upon my shoulder and cuss me as familial and neighbourly as if he"d been a common chap. Ay, "a cussed me up hill and "a cussed me down; and then "a would rave out again, and the goold clamps of his fine new teeth would glisten in the sun like fetters of bra.s.s, while I, being a small man and poor, was fain to say nothing at all. Such a strappen fine gentleman as he was too! Yes, I rather liked en sometimes. But once now and then, when I looked at his towering height, I"d think in my inside, "What a weight you"ll be, my lord, for our arms to lower under the aisle of Endelstow Church some day!""
"And was he?" inquired a young labourer.
"He was. He was five hundredweight if "a were a pound. What with his lead, and his oak, and his handles, and his one thing and t"other"--here the ancient man slapped his hand upon the cover with a force that caused a rattle among the bones inside--"he half broke my back when I took his feet to lower en down the steps there. "Ah," saith I to John there--didn"t I, John?--"that ever one man"s glory should be such a weight upon another man!" But there, I liked my lord George sometimes."
""Tis a strange thought," said another, "that while they be all here under one roof, a snug united family o" Luxellians, they be really scattered miles away from one another in the form of good sheep and wicked goats, isn"t it?"