Читать книгу Jessie Trim - B. L. Farjeon - Страница 7

Notwithstanding her limited means, my mother had always managed to keep up a respectable appearance. Popular report had settled it that my grandmother was a woman of property and that my father had money; and the fact that my grandmother's long stocking had proved to be a myth was most completely discredited. We are supposed, therefore, to be well to do, and the scandal would have been great if my father had not received a respectable funeral. Public opinion called for it. My mother makes a great effort, and quite out of love, I am sure, and not at all in deference to public opinion, buries my father in a manner so respectable as to receive the entire approval of our neighbours. Public opinion called for mutes, and two mutes--one with a very long face and one with a very square face--are at our door, the objects of deep and attentive contemplation on the part of the sundry and several. Public opinion called for four black horses, and there they stand, champing their bits, with their mouths well soaped. Public opinion called for plumes, and there they wave, and bow, and bend, proud and graceful attendants at the shrine of death. Public opinion called for mock mourners, and they are ready to parody grief, with very large feet, ill-fitting black gloves, and red-rimmed eyes, which suggest the idea that their eyelids have been wept away by a long course of salaried affliction. Never all his life had my father been so surrounded by pomps and vanities; but public opinion has decided that on such solemn occasions grief is not grief unless it is lacquered, and that common decency would be outraged by following the dead to the grave with simple humility.

The interior of our house has an appearance generally suggestive of graves and coffins. The company is assembled in the little parlour facing the street--my grandmother's room--and in her expiring attempt at respectability my mother has provided sherry and biscuits. The blinds are down although it is broad day; a parody of a sunbeam flows through a chink, but the motes within it are anything but lively, and float up and down the slanting pillar in a sluggish and funereal manner, in perfect sympathy with the occasion. The cat peeps into the room, debating whether she shall enter; after a cautious scrutiny she decides in the negative, and retires stealthily, to muse over the uncertainty of life in a more retired spot. The company is not numerous. Snaggletooth is present, and the doctor, and two neighbours who approve of the sherry. These latter invite Snaggletooth's attention to the wine, and he pours out a glass and disposes of it with a sadly resigned air; saying before he drinks it, with a tender reference to my father as he holds it up to the light, Ah! If he could!' Conversation is carried on in a deadly-lively style. I think of my baby-brother, and a wild temptation urges me to fall upon my knees and make confession of the murder; but I resist it, and am guiltily dumb. Snaggletooth, observing signs of agitation in my face, pats me on the shoulder, and says, 'Poor little fellow!' The two neighbours follow suit, and poor-little-fellow me in sympathising tones. After this, they approach the decanter of sherry with one intention. There is but half a glass left, which the first to reach the decanter pours out and drinks, while the second regards him reproachfully, with a look which asks, On such an occasion should not self be sacrificed? Before the lid of the coffin is fastened down, I am taken into the room by Snaggletooth to look for the last time upon my father's face. I see nothing but a figure in white which inspires me with fear. I cling close to Snaggletooth. He is immensely affected, and mutters, 'Good-bye, old schoolfellow! Ah, time! time!' As I look up at him, his bald head glistens as would a ball of wax, and something glistens in his eyes.

When the coffin is taken out of the house, there is great excitement among the throng of persons in the street. They peep over each other's shoulders to catch a glimpse of the coffin and of me. I cannot help feeling that I am in an exalted position. A thrill of pride stirs my heart. Am I not chief mourner?

I stand by the side of a narrow grave, dug in a corner of the churchyard, and shaded from the sun's glare by a triangular wall, the top of which is covered with pieces of broken bottles, arranged with cruel nicety and precision, so that their sharp and jagged ends are uppermost. Standing also within the shadow of the triangular wall are a number of tombstones, some fair and white, others yellow and crumbling from age, which I regard with the air of one who has acquired a vested interest in the property. I do not understand the words the clergyman utters, for he has an impediment in his speech. But as the coffin is lowered, I am impelled gently towards the grave, from which I shrink, however, apprehensive lest I shall be thrust into it, and buried beneath the earth which is scattered on the coffin with a leaden miserable sound. When the service is ended, I hear Snaggletooth mutter, 'Think of him lying there, and look at me! And we were schoolfellows, and played snowball together!' Snaggletooth shows me my grandmother's grave, and the grave of my baby-brother. I dare not look upon the latter, knowing what I know. Then Snaggletooth, still with head uncovered, stands before a little gave over which is a small marble tombstone, with the inscription, 'Here Lieth our Beloved Daughter.' Seeing that his tears are falling on the grave, I creep closer to him, and he presses me gently to his side. I read the inscription slowly, spelling the words, 'Here Lieth our Beloved Daughter,' and I look at him inquiringly.

'My daughter,' he says; 'the sweetest angel that ever breathed. She was three years and one day old when she died, nearly five years ago. Poor darling! Five years ago! Ah, time! time!'

As we pass out of the churchyard I notice again the broken glass on the top of the wall, and I say,

'Isn't that cruel?'

'Why cruel?' asks Snaggletooth. 'No one can get in without hurting himself.'

Snaggletooth regards me with an eye of curiosity.

'And who do you think wants to get into such a place, my little fellow?'

I do not answer, and Snaggletooth adds,

'The angels, perhaps. Good--good. But they come in another way.'

'No one can get out without hurting himself,' I suggest.

'That is a better thought; but if they lived good lives----'

'Yes, sir.'

'Walls covered with broken glass won't hurt them.'

Snaggletooth looks upwards contemplatively. I look up also, and a sudden dizziness comes upon me and overpowers me. Snaggletooth catches me as I am falling.

'You are not well, my little fellow.'

'No, sir; I feel very weak, but the doctor says I shall get over it.'

Snaggletooth lifts me in his arms, and I fall asleep on his shoulder as he carries me tenderly home.

Here we are, my mother and I, sitting in the little parlour. My mother has been crying over me, and perhaps over the sad future that lies before us. Not a sound now is to be heard. My condition is a strange one. Everything about me is very unreal, and I wonderingly consider if I shall ever wake up. All my young experiences come to me again. I see my grandmother and myself sitting together. There upon the mantelshelf is the figure of the smoke-dried monkey of a man in stone, wagging his head at me; there is the man with the knob on the top of his head--what is his name? Anthony--yes, Anthony Bullpit--making a meal off his finger nails. In marches my grandmother's long stocking, bulged out with money to the shape of a very substantial leg, just as I had fancied it--that makes me laugh; but my flesh creeps as I hear Jane Painter's voice in the dark, telling of blood and murder. The last word, as she dwells upon it, brings up my baby-brother, and I hear the Dutch clock tick: 'I know! I know!' But it ticks all these fancies into oblivion, and ticks in the picture of the churchyard. I see the graves and the tombstones, and I read the inscription: 'Here Lieth our Beloved Daughter.' How it must grieve her parents to know that their beloved daughter is lying shut up in the cold earth! I raise a portrait of the child, with fair hair and laughing eyes, and I wonder how she would look now if she were dug up, and whether her parents would know her again. Night surprises me confined within the triangular wall of the churchyard. The gates are closed, and I cannot pass out. The moon shines down icily. The cold air makes my fevered blood hotter. I must get out! I cannot stop confined here for ever! I dig my fingers into the wall; desperately I cling to it, and strive to climb. Inch by inch I mount. With an exquisite sense of relief I reach the top, but as I place my hands upon it they are cut to the bone by the broken glass, and with a wild shudder I sink into darkness and oblivion!