WaynfleteColeridge, Christabel R. (Christabel Rose)
General
Waynflete
Coleridge, Christabel R. (Christabel Rose)
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Guy seemed quite able to bear his part. He hardly looked paler than
Godfrey, and was less agitated, as he stood with the white wreath in his
hand, looking down at the pavement. It was a day of heavy driving
clouds, and the light in the dark old church dimmed and brightened
alternately, catching now and then the stony figures of the older
Waynfletes, till Cuthbert felt as if it would hardly have surprised him
if the ghostly form of the traitor ancestor had stood among the mourners
and mocked their grief. It grew so dark as the service went on that he
could see little but the fair heads of the two brothers before him, and
the white surplice of the vicar.
The prayers and hymns were over, the coffin was lifted up again and
carried out across the nameless grave of the unhappy Guy, whose
shortcomings she who was gone had retrieved so resolutely. But the Guy
who followed the funeral, who had also lost the inheritance for himself,
stopped short. He stooped and laid the white and scented wreath over
the brief record on that unhonoured stone, then drew himself up, and
slowly and resolutely looked all round the church, his eyes resting at
last on the door in front of him. There was, or Cuthbert fancied so, an
instant's recoil, then he walked straight on, as if he were walking up
to a cannon's mouth, and followed the coffin out of the church.
Godfrey, who had stood with drooping head, fighting with boyish tears,
stared after him in amazement at his action.
The long drive to Kirk Hinton, and the weary commonplaces of the railway
journey were got through in time, and at Ingleby station the scene
changed. The invited guests were waiting on the platform--rough,
sensible-looking business men, with some few of the more nearly
connected ladies, in handsome black.
Outside, it might have been the burying of a princess--the open space in
front of the station was filled with grave, weather-beaten faces. And
two and two, the work-people, in their Sunday clothes, formed behind the
funeral party and walked after them through the smoky town, into the
big, ugly parish church, full of pews and galleries, and with plain
square windows letting in a dull glare of cold grey light. It was soon
filled to overflowing with silent men and women.
There were only two surpliced figures; but in the west gallery were the
choir, by their own request, and the funeral hymn rose up, full, sweet
and strong, joined in by all the vast concourse of people.
Then they passed out into a large churchyard, filled with square grey
stones, in which the family vault of the Palmers had been opened, and
there Margaret Waynflete's body was laid among those for whom, and with
whom, she had worked through all her long life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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