University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.

Parke sat by another bed of death, dull and exhausted.
He listened to Mrs. Lang's reproaches, Clarice's accusations,
and Charlotte's dying sighs, with a stupid composure.
Before sunrise he looked upon the face of his
dead mistress, with her dead child beside her. The awe
of death was ushered in the chamber with the pale dawn.
A yellow light crept round the walls, over the figures of
Mrs. Lang and Clarice, who sat motionless and heavy,
like the mutilated statues in the sand of Thebes—over
the defaced, haggard glory in Parke's face; over the
dumb, marble Charlotte. Not until Mrs. Lang and
Clarice stole out of the room did he move from the position
he had maintained for hours; then he stood before
the bed. Charlotte's hair had fallen across her arm in a
coil; he untwined it, and held it—the talisman of the
past—and studied the mystery in her face—that which
the dead bear away with them, and never reveal. As
dead as this prostrate, powerless creature, were the feelings
which she had created in his heart. Their existence
had ceased with hers; but his heart was killed too—by
depletion. How beautiful she was still! The images
of the women he had known rose up before him in their
living power, and it seemed to him that of them all Charlotte
could only die; that of Theresa Bond glowed with
color, and streamed in upon his thoughts like a pane of
stained glass in a gloomy cathedral. Pity, though, that

so much beauty, so loving a heart as Charlotte's, must
be entombed;—he wept pure tears of pity for her, which
her spirit must have rejoiced over. No hand but his, he
determined, should touch those beautiful tresses, he had
so often slept against. He called Mrs. Lang in again,
and told her his wish. Some ribbon was found, and
with that they were arranged; but Mrs. Lang observed
that his face was averted from the child, which lay as if
slumbering on the pillow.

“The Lord has not taken off the babe dis time; it was
some other body.”

“You know,” he said, “that I have not seen it. I
shall not look at it; that shame may be spared me at
least. Hide it in her bosom, if you choose, it is already
hidden in mine—the monument to remind me to hate
myself; in hers, it may turn to a pitying angel. Now
keep everybody away. Send for your minister, if you
choose, no one else.”

“Yes, my minister wanted to baptize her! Ha! Charlotte
baptized! Any of my chil'n baptized—isn't that a
joke—oh, Almighty, give me patience.” And Mrs.
Lang wrung her hands, and screamed like a maniac.

“Hush,” said Parke, “one of you is dead at any
rate.”

“Stay with us,” she implored.

“Yes—till I go to the grave with her. After that
there will be nothing I can do for you.”

The manner which he instinctively assumed she understood
at once, and told Clarice that Charlotte would be
buried for good with him, and they also on the day of
the funeral.

“Of course,” she replied, “there are no more Charlottes

to seduce; why shouldn't he leave? Mother,
can't we go from here?”

“No; we should have to take what we are with us,
wherever we went.”

“True, we will stay, and rub in our humiliation, and
keep the brand bright. Ashes are good where the flesh
is raw.”

“You are a beast of a child; Charlotte was better. I
wanted her to live.”

“I say she was bad.”

“Bless them that despitefully use you,” sang Mrs.
Lang, “and I bless you, Clarice.”

“Pooh, you are melted just now.”

Parke sent a note to Philippa with the particulars, informing
her that he should not be at home at present.
Philippa, for reply, sent him some money and a change
of clothes, by a messenger she picked up outside. She
then gave the note to Jason, who read it, and returned it
without comment. But it had the effect of sending him
out of doors. His pale, stern face appeared everywhere
for the three days following. People were made sensible,
such was the force of his presence, that he was
Parke's protector. As for Osmond, the pressure of circumstances,
as he teasingly told Elsa, was such that he
thought he had better “sing small.”

“When I hear one of your diabolical set `singing
small,' I shall hear a new kind of music,” she replied.

Philippa defied the devil, as Elsa commented; it was
impossible to guess from her behavior that any calamity
was weighing upon her. She repelled every inclination
of sympathy that might have strayed in her direction.
Somehow Elsa obtained all the particulars concerning

Parke, and knew the exact moment when he issued from
Mrs. Lang's door to follow the coffin in company with
her and a few of the immediate neighbors.

“I'll bet,” she said, “that this day he is his mother's
own child. I should like to see how he bears comparison,
as he stands among his respectable dead relations.”

He was well worth the seeing. A number of people,
as curious as Elsa, had gathered about the gate of the
burying-ground, and there were loungers down the
length of the picket-fence—of that class whose tongues
are the hot-beds for startling crops of surmises. A group
of young men, Parke's acquaintances, were waiting for
his arrival with mixed feelings—of admiration at his
pluck, and gratification at the strait he was brought to.
These persons had taken a common privilege: funerals
were not affairs that belonged to friends and relatives
merely—they were the right of the public, who liked to
feel the pulse of grief.

With all his imperfections on his head, Parke never
looked so much a man as then; he walked up the gravel-path
with Mrs. Lang on his arm, passed his mother's
grave, whose mound rose brown and bare among the
grassy hillocks which surrounded it, and stood before
the heap of sand which was to cover Charlotte. Then
all the followers saw that she was to be buried among
the Parkes, with his own family. This proud concession
implied more than they could define. His self-possession
was astonishing; there was so much cold authority in
his mien that not one of them would have been willing
to meet his eye. The women retreated, but, with the
petty bitterness of women, and hypocrisy, said to each
other, “Did you ever see such brass?” and “Isn't it a

pretty thing that the wolves in sheep's clothing are having
it all their own way?” But the men were silent for
a moment; then they burst out with, “By Jove, sirs,
there's stuff!” and “Who can blame the girl?”

Though Clarice staggered in her convulsive weeping,
she was conscious of a sentiment of gratitude towards
Parke for giving Charlotte the place among the dead of
his race that he would have given her had she been his
wife. That she would be his wife, had she lived, Clarice
had never believed, though she was aware of his promise
—made on the day of the awful discovery of the nature
of the connection between them.

Mrs. Lang muttered so strangely when the coffin slid
on its cords, that he pulled her vail over her face, and
held a warning arm round her. When the minister had
spoken the earth-consecrating words, he raised his hat,
and, still leading Mrs. Lang, moved down the path; but
he did not return home with her and Clarice; after placing
them in the carriage, he turned into a solitary by-road,
and walked by himself.

He entered the room where Osmond sat reading, and
Philippa was sewing, and stood before them a moment
in silence. A smile, which trailed the whole past over
his face, struck Osmond and Philippa with the feeling
that they had not seen him for ages.

“Crystallization has taken place,” thought Osmond;
“he is too young, the boy, for that.” Then he said aloud,
“Crest won't do for me, my boy, without you. Jason
is monotonous, and Philippa is—Philippa.”

Parke laid his hand lightly on his shoulder, turned
from him, and sat down by her. She was sewing a long
seam on white cloth, which he remembered to have seen

in her hands, six weeks, or six years, before. She looked
up, full of the effort to speak to him, but Jason entered,
and she remained silent. Parke instantly rose and faced
his father, thus paying his first tribute of respect to him.
Jason turned his head to the window, to the doors, towards
Parke, and nodded with a nod which contained
the old permission of full liberty.

“Upon my soul,” Osmond silently commented, “that
man is a genius, and an honor to human nature. If he
develops, I should like to make a raree show of him.”

Philippa rolled up her work, and made some stir
over her work-basket, wondering why they did not
speak—this was the occasion! Presently, as the silence
continued unbroken, with a mixture of courage and simplicity
she said, “Silence is sometimes a want of truth.”

“Always,” said Jason; “but what are you going to
do about it?”

“Philippa is simply an idiot,” thought Osmond.

“Is it not enough that I have returned?” said Parke;
“or will you have a sermon preached?”

“Oh, that has been preached,” Jason answered.

“I thought so,” said Parke.